


A Long, Long Way to Go to Die

by Aria_i_Adagio



Series: The Opposite of Falling [2]
Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Backstory, Bipolar Disorder, Canonical Character Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Flashbacks, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Mental Illness, Multi, NSFW chapters marked, Novelization, OT3, Pre Canon, Semi-Canon Compliant, VERY Longfic, implied julian/lucio, longfic, mmf, poly route
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-17
Updated: 2020-04-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:20:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 42,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22230961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aria_i_Adagio/pseuds/Aria_i_Adagio
Summary: “I want to see you and speak to you. I know you don’t listen or at least pretend you don’t listen, but I shall bang on your door until you open, and if you don’t open... if you don’t open your door, I shall break it down!”  ~ Nikos Kazantzakis,The Last Temptation of ChristWhile Dema frantically tries to figure out how to retrieve Julian from the mess he’s gotten himself into, Asra must confront his own mistakes and his past relationship with Julian.  The present problems of the three interweave with original backstory and additional development of secondary characters.Picks up from whereWhatever I’ve Doneleft off.
Relationships: Apprentice/Asra (The Arcana), Apprentice/Asra/Julian Devorak, Apprentice/Julian Devorak, Asra/Julian Devorak
Series: The Opposite of Falling [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1594276
Comments: 53
Kudos: 34





	1. Pestilence is Won When You are Lost and I am Gone

**Author's Note:**

> Work title from LP. ["Long Way to Go to Die."](https://youtu.be/b9jNTdqi_Hs)
> 
> Chapter one and coda title from [Mumford and Sons, "Winter Winds."](https://youtu.be/_KCg_QEHtkY)

__

_Four years before the beginning of the game._

First, the rule was that the bodies of the dead had to be sent for cremation on the Lazaret. Wagons did the rounds of the city each morning - voices muffled by masks calling for the dead to be brought out and taken away like so much rubbish. Next, all licensed medical professionals in the city were ordered to the palace to research possible cures for the plague in mass. A few still ventured out into the city, Julian among them, but by and large, caring for the sick fell to less official helpers: apothecaries, midwives, and herbalists.

I fell into the last category. Someone who knew something about treating diseases - at least, the symptoms thereof. My aunt had known more. Much, much more. But she was gone a year, and I had done my best with what she had taught me, and the books left behind, and Julian’s more systematic knowledge. It wasn’t enough.

It was never enough. 

But we tried anyway. Tried to help the ones we could. Tried to keep ourselves from giving in entirely to despair and despondency.

Artemis, a friend of mine and a midwife who had stayed in the city instead of leaving with her wife and child, Julian and I met about once a week at my shop to pack kits we could hand out to the sick: charms, herbal teas, and whatever medicines Julian had managed to procure from his various connections. Pack kits and play cards, because gambling with friends over strong beer and small change was reassuringly normal in the midst of everything that was not normal.

Then a new proclamation was issued. The dead were no longer the only bodies to be sent to the Lazaret; the bodies of the soon to be dead would join them. Anyone showing signs of the plague was to be reported to the bird masked doctors, so they could be quarantined. Quarantine - a convenient euphemism for sent to die.

That night we played a few rounds before giving up on the pretense of levity. Julian sprawled across the table, spinning the corks from bottles of beer that had long been drunk up. 

“I guess, um, I mean maybe it’ll help contain the spread. To separate the sick and the well.” He quit spinning the corks and started stacking them into a miniature wall that he promptly flicked over. 

“Bullshit, dear boy.” Artemis reaches across the table to pat his shoulder. Julian is a couple of years older than she is, but she’s referred to him as “boy” or “the boy” since they were introduced. But in all fairness, she is the most mature of the three of us sitting around the table. “No one has figured out how this damned thing spreads. And it seems far more likely to be the water than personal contact. Might as well let people die at home with at least some human comfort and dignity. Don’t need a fucking medical education to know that.”

“I know. I know. I think all three of us would be dead by now if proximity was the main vector.” Julian sat up long enough to take another drink, then slumped back down on the table, arms folded under his head. “And I’m not even sure Valdemar is human, to be honest.” Next to him, I leaned against him, resting my head on his shoulder and playing with his hair.

“Why are they sending some of the sick to the palace instead of the docks?” Artemis sips her beer. “Certainly that interloping peacock doesn’t want plebeian plague germs.” 

Julian sits up straight, eyes wide. “Whatever you do, do not - do not - let people get sent to the palace. Bribe the plague doctors - any kind of liquor should do, gods know we need it. Take people to the docks yourself if you have to. The Lazaret . . . the Lazaret is the better option.”

“Julian.” I rubbed his shoulder, worried by the sudden fervor in his voice. Every time he came back from the palace, the circles around his eyes were darker and the tension in his body tighter. The past few times he had stayed the night with me, he had woken up before the sun, sobbing from nightmares. But I’d never heard him sound this harrowed by whatever it was that happened there.

Artemis looked from Julian to me, and then back again, worry in her deep-set eyes. “Well, on that ominous note -” She touched his hand, then pressed the back of her own against his forehead.

“No. I know I exaggerate - sometimes - but not, not now.” He sat up and pinched the bridge of his nose, seeping his hand back through his hair and sending it tumbling around his face in unruly waves.

“I believe you, Julian.” Her voice was quiet, serious. She brushed her fingers over his hand again and pushed his hair back from his face, the way a mother might try to comfort a child. She stood up and wrapped her shawl around her shoulders. “The docks then. I’ll figure something out. I’ll lock up behind myself, Dema.” She nodded at me and headed downstairs. I heard the bell ring as she let herself out of the shop.

With a groan, Julian laid back down on the table. I shuffled my fingers through his hair and experimentally pulled it up into a loose bun. He hadn’t cut it in a while, and it was threatening to reach his shoulders. I liked it. Then again, I would like his hair any way he chose to wear it. “Ilyusha -” I didn’t usually use his given name, much less the very familiar diminutive. “Tell me what’s going on.”

He sat up again and pulled me into his lap and burying his face in my hair. “I can’t. It’s forbidden. And anyway, I don’t, I don’t want you touched by that. I don’t want that here.”

I snuggled against his chest for a minute, then reluctantly stood up, tugging on his hand. “Come on, darling. Let’s go to bed.” With a little shove in the right direction, he stumbled to the bedroom. I poured us both a mug of lukewarm tea - second steeping, so it shouldn’t keep us awake. There were enough other things in the world to induce insomnia.

When I push past the curtain that serves as a door, Julian was sitting on the edge of the bed, boots already off and his head in his hands I nudged his arm, pushing the mug into his hands. “Drink that. You need something other than alcohol in you.”

He drank the tea in a couple of utilitarian gulps and set the empty mug aside before leaning over to nuzzle my neck. Not so much sexual, not right now, more of a desperate seeking of human contact in the midst of a world that seemed to be burning down around us. I tilted my head to the side, indulging myself for a moment in the pleasurable touch before turning toward him and undoing the one or two buttons that remained fastened on his shirt. Cupping his face in my hands, I ran my thumbs along the dark circles under his eyes then pulled his face down to mine and kissed him: forehead, nose, soft lips. He groaned and leaned into my embrace as I ran my to the back of his neck, over the tense muscles there then further down his back. “Okay, love, shirt off, on your stomach.”

He hesitated, started touching my face. “Dema, let me, what do you -”

“Don’t argue.” I recognized what he was trying to do. Focus on someone else, so that he didn’t have to experience his own feelings. “Right now, I want to take care of you.” 

His hands stay on my face, but his eyes drop behind long, dark lashes. “Please.” It’s a breath more than a word.

He pressed his forehead against mine then shrugged out of his shirt, laid back on the bed and rolled over. I climbed onto the bed, straddling his waist, and dragged my hands down either side of his spine, then worked back up his back to knead his shoulders, leaning forward to kiss the back of his neck.

“I worry about you.”

“Why?”

“Because you're a kind man in what sounds more and more like a deeply unkind place.”

He was quiet for a moment, then sighed heavily. “Oh, _solnishka_ , I’m not so sure I can be called kind anymore. Or ever again. Not after all this.”

**Coda: And No Hope, No Hope will Overcome**

She wasn’t ready when they came for her. Denial, not surprise. She knew they’d come. Knew that the glamour would have failed at some point and someone would have seen the telltale red in her eyes and reported it to the authorities. After all, that was what everyone had been told to do, and no one knew what they should do, so they would do as they were told. Easier. Understandable. An order is a comfort in a way, when there is no rhyme nor reason by which to divine what one actually should do. 

But she had just convinced herself that she had a little more time. An hour. A few minutes. A half-minute more. If the time between two moments can be divided into infinitely smaller fractions, it must be infinite. Yes?

They forced the door - the people in the bird masks. Light from her lamps glints red off the polished glass hiding their eyes. One grabbed her roughly by the shoulder. People think that masks let you become someone else for a time. Once she thought that too. But she knew better now, much better. The anonymity of masks revealed who people really are. That was the real function of wearing a mask. 

“It’s better if you cooperate,” a second one said.

A minute - just a minute. She jerked free of the hands on her shoulders. The shop, colored lamps and jars and a thousand subtly different smells spun around her as she groped behind the counter for paper, a stub of a pencil. Just a minute. She kicked back hard. Caught a leg, heard a curse. Just a moment. Then she would cooperate. Need to leave something. Anything for him - either him - to find.

Having to leave was an awful enough thought. Being gone with no trace was even worse.

“Let her.” It’s the second one. The one whose mask didn’t reveal cruelty.

She twisted Asra’s ring off her finger and steadied her shaking hands long enough to scrawl artlessly across the scrap paper. Not what she wanted to say, but she doesn’t have enough time to put words to all that she did want to say. Weighted the paper down with the ring and drew a quick sigil about them so that there were only two sets of hands that could touch either object. She shuddered when she looked back at the bird masks, but she nodded to the kinder one and took her cloak down from the hook by the door. It’s better if you cooperate.

_J - I love you. I love you. I love you._

_You are good, and I love you._

_Tell him I didn’t take his ring off until now._

_I’m sorry. -D_


	2. Stop Your Frantic Little Fingers Trying to Collect the Years that Pour From a Hole in My Side

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from [Nick Cave, "Lie Down Here"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-iXDrNhCZY).

__

_Present. Morning after Julian turns himself into the Countess._

Asra managed, I think, to catch a couple of hours of sleep, falling in and out of wakefulness after he gave up on the idea of me resting, and just let me pace the room and lay sheets of paper out in columns and rows until I have a space that might be big enough to contain my oscillating thoughts, sealing the edges together with a touch of magic, and scribble notes to myself. They don’t make much sense in the morning, not even to me, and when Portia arrives with breakfast, I crumple the entire sheet and pitch it into the cold hearth.

She doesn’t look like she got much more sleep than I did. Red rims her big blue eyes. My suspicions are further confirmed when she pours herself a cup of coffee instead of her habitual tea. Never a good sign when a tea drinker reaches for coffee. She hadn’t been there when Julian turned himself in, and I hope that Nadia had found her to break the news privately. I don’t want to imagine what it would have been like to walk into the palace only to hear that your brother had been apprehended and would swing from the gallows soon.

“So, what do we do now?” Portia sits down heavily in one of the chairs and looks across the table at Asra and me.

“You’ve spoken to Nadia?”

Portia absently adds two heaping spoonfuls of sugar and a goodly amount of cream to her coffee. “She said she thinks he’s innocent, but she doesn’t know how to stop it after the announcement was made, and with as many people hearing confess as did last night. She’s going to hold a trial at least. Have either of you found any evidence that can’t be argued with?” Her pleading eyes are filled with barely contained tears, and I think that I might dissolve too.

“Not yet.” Asra shakes his head sadly. He also goes for coffee instead of tea. I must have kept him more awake last night than I thought. Didn’t realize that I was creating that much of a disturbance. Shouldn’t be that surprised to have been a nuisance though. Should have gone to the library.

“Something about what he found yesterday, in the dungeon, lab, office - whatever the hell that nasty place is - got him to turn himself in.” I stand up, coffee cup in hand, and start pacing the room. Sitting still isn’t right. It’s wrong to the point of being painful. “I need to talk to him.”

Portia’s expression changes to one of concern as she watches my movements. _Shit._ Now I’m adding to her worries. “I’m going to go talk to Mazelinka. Hopefully ahead of rumors, but I doubt it. She can smuggle anything into or out of anywhere. Maybe we’ll just take him and run.”

“Where’s he being held?”

“Cells under the Coliseum.”

Asra stiffens when she mentions that massive abandoned structure. “Not the palace?”

“No.” Portia’s voice cracks. “That’s where the trial will be and the Praetor insisted on locking up Ilya there.” She pulls a flattened and engraved piece of metal from her pocket. “Milady gave this to me for you. It should get you past the guards.” 

* * *

The guards posted at Coliseum eye us skeptically, but let us pass once we’ve presented Nadia’s token. Asra hangs onto me tightly as we climb down the stairs, but he won’t tell me what’s wrong other than to reference “old, very unpleasant memories that we don’t have time for right now.” 

From what I know of the Coliseum’s history, I can’t imagine that there are any good memories to be had here. Lucio had convicts fight to the death for entertainment - against wild animals or against each other. He called it trial by combat. The sand above is still stained brown with dried blood, and every movement in the corner of my vision transforms into a ghost raging or bemoaning their fate. 

Julian paces in his cell as much as possible with a manacle and chain connecting him to the wall, carrying on a conversation with himself. Multiple emotions cross his face as we unlock the door with magic and enter the cell, but it is Asra who surprises me. He reaches Julian in two long steps and pulls him into a tight embrace.

“Ilya, you fucking idiot.” Asra’s voice is tender - tender enough to make “idiot” sound like a pet name.

Julian stands still for a moment, shocked, then slowly - not quite awkwardly - returns Asra's embrace. He looks over to me, expression pleading for something - explanation? Permission? Me to join the two of them? Then, he catches sight of the open door to the cell, and even without any visible guard beyond, schools his face into a villainous expression and pushes Asra away. Asra’s eyes drop as he’s shoved back. “Ilya, please.” His voice is more of a sob than the calm, collected speech I’m used to hearing from him.

“Come to get my confession before the trial?” Julian pronounces the question further back on his throat than usual, trying to sound vicious. The way a normally friendly dog might growl if it's trying to overcome a reputation for rolling over with its tail wagging to expose its belly for rubs. The way he had ad-libbed his lines when he was thrust on stage in the theater.

I kick the door shut because it’s far more satisfying to lash out at the inanimate object than to simply close it like a reasonable person. Iron bars rattle in the wooden frame, and I raise my hands placing a ward to block sound. I take Asra’s hand in mine, squeezing it against Julian’s rejection and the other, unspoken pain that this place holds for him. “Drop the act, Julian.”

“And what if everything you think is built on an act? You don't know the real me - what I've done! I barely do.” He turns away from us and presses his forehead against the stone wall. “I've brought nothing but misfortune to anyone. Especially to both of you. You should never have met me.”

Asra lets go of my hand and gives me a little push toward Julian. I wrap my arms around Julian’s waist and pull him away from the wall, forcing him to sit down on a bench, so that I could reach his hair, and take off the eyepatch, and run my fingers over his face and through his hair in an attempt to soothe him, to soothe myself, to soothe both or us. He gives in, head lolling in my hands as I trace my thumbs over his cheekbones. “But we did.”

“I only bring disaster.”

“You can't continue blaming yourself for everything.”

“Even when it's my fault?” He drops his head forward, leaning against my shoulder. “I should have done something, anything, instead I let you . . .” His voice trails off and he buries his face against me, misery rolling off him. I rub his back and look over at Asra, hoping for some help. He sits on the other side of Julian, placing his hand on the back of Julian’s neck. “Ilya, whatever you think you did, you don’t have to die to be forgiven.”

Lifting Julian's head from my shoulder, I cup his face in my hands and kiss him. “Julian, what did you find in that dungeon?”

“In my old office? I, umm -” Julian's eyes widen, then harden again. I shouldn’t have asked that. Not yet. “No, that's all you’ll get from me, Dema. Come on, don't you want to hear about how I killed Count Lucio?”

“Dammit, Julian!” I launch myself off the bench and spin on my heel, turning away from him. “Fine. I'll go find it myself.” There’s no time for these theatrics.

“Wait, wait, no - you can't go down there!” He grabs the hem of my skirt. I turn back, only to see the most desperately lost of expressions on his face. My heart breaks. I want to sit back down, cuddle him and Asra both, tell them it’s okay, that I’ve found some magic to make this all just go away - change the past and the present both. But that kind of magic doesn’t exist. And no amount of wanting on my part will create it.

“Please, please don't go down there. It's dangerous. You could get hurt, you could get sick, and I can't, I can't possibly. Asra, talk some sense into her!”

Asra meets his panicked entreaty with an inscrutable expression, hands tightening on Julian’s shoulder.

Julian looks back to me, more desperate now. “Besides, the key didn't work for you. Just me. Guilty hands - remember? You can't possibly be as bad as me.”

“You don't know that! I don't know that! For all we know, I murdered the damned count!”

“No.” Julian and Asra respond simultaneously.

“What? All of us are missing memories. I could have done it. Unless one - or both - of you is keeping back something that rules out that possibility.”

Julian and Asra stare at each other. The silence between them is heavier than the chain linking Julian to the prison wall. Finally, Julian looks back at me, tears in his eyes. He tugs at my skirt, and this time I let him pull me to him and clutch me against him, the cold, hard manacle on his wrist digging into my back. “I have loved you for so long.”

Asra wraps one arm around my waist leaving his other on Julian’s back and pulling the three of us together. “I don't understand what you're doing, Ilya.”

“I - no.” Julian sits up and pushes me away from him, into Asra's lap. “Both of you should go. Just leave me to my fate. It's better this way.”

I shake my head and pull free of Asra’s grip. “I can't believe that. I have to get enough evidence to exonerate you.” Not a choice. This is not a choice. It just _has_ to happen.

“Asra,” Julian's voice cracks with anguish. “Don't let her go. She could get hurt!”

I break the wards on the door and stalk out of the cell. In the hallway, I lean my forehead against the cool stone wall, breathing hard and waiting for Asra to follow. He lingers, conversing with Julian, too quietly for me to overhear what is said between them. Finally, he presses his forehead to Julian's - not quite a kiss, but clearly, so clearly affectionate - and stands up, following me to the hallway. The look he gives me communicated that he agreed with Julian at least on the matter of venturing into the dungeon laboratory. Impossible. Both of them.

“I'm going.” I repeat the statement loud enough for both of them to hear and stalk down the corridor, hoping that I project more confidence than I feel. Julian's protests follow me down the corridor, but there is no choice. He is not going to die for a murder he didn't commit. He is not going to die at all.

* * *

As we walk through the busy city streets, Asra tries to talk me out of going down into the crypt. He protests that Julian is right - I could get hurt. There is something dangerous down there. If it jogged Julian’s memories, what if it triggers mine and it’s too much and . . . It is so very, very easy to allow his protests to be drowned out by the shifting snippets of speech spiraling around the streets. The price of fish, how much for a dozen eggs, did you hear - Devorak turned himself in, the baker just pulled the kifli from the oven, no way he did it, boy couldn’t harm a fly, I hope they have apricot today, can’t wait to see him swing . . . 

I see Artemis across the street. Thank god, someone with sense, because I know I don’t have much remaining at this point, and it’s rapidly becoming clear that neither Julian nor Asra possesses any.

“Artemis!” I glance around for wagons or carriages and dart across the street - still have enough sense to do that, at least - leaving Asra fussing behind me. 

She grabs my wrist and hugs me tightly. “Are you alright? The market is buzzing. Did Julian really turn himself in last night?”

“He did.”

“Idiot boy.” She glares at Asra over my shoulder, and I'm not sure if she's referring to him or Julian or possibly both. “And the Countess's investigation? What came of that?”

“Better not to talk in the street. And there's something else I need to tell you. My place? It's closer than yours.”

She loops her arm through my mine. “Sure, I've got time enough for a cup of tea. And you probably need to vent a bit to someone who's not so directly involved, don't you?”

Asra follows a pace or two back, avoiding direct confrontation with Artemis. She chats about light, pleasant topics as we walk, catching me up on Sibyl and the little ones. Eurydike lost her first tooth, and Tam is jealous because the tooth fairy brought her a toy unicorn. Sibyl has gotten into a baking mood, and there are more cookies and sweets than they can eat right now.

Asra excuses himself to go make tea while Artemis and I sit down in the back room of the shop. She holds my hands across the reading table. “Tell me true, are you alright?”

I shake my head - too rapidly and probably too many times. “No. I don't know how to get Julian out of this now that he's confessed, and I did know him before . . . Artemis, you knew. Asra told me you knew about me the whole time, how I've lost memories and regained them, but -” 

She looks down at our hands. The quiet of the room encircles met, and for a moment, I want to run back into the streets where at least I’m surrounded by a madness that matches my own. “Dema, I am so, so very sorry. I didn't know what else to do though. You were so lost. I hoped -” She let's go of one of my hands to brush a tear from her eye. “I hoped that somehow in helping the Countess you'd regain things little by little, in manageable chunks, maybe? Julian. You loved him. Do you remember now?”

“I don't remember. I just know.”

Her chin dips in a sage nod. “I think I would know that I love Sibyl and the children even if I forgot everything else.”

Asra returns jugging a tray with a steaming pot of tea and three mugs. He sets them down on the edge of the table, pours tea for all three of us with strangely shaking hands, and takes a deep breath before speaking rapidly, as if he's trying to forestall her cutting him off.

“Artemis you need to know the plague might be returning and I don't know what to tell you to do with that information other than _keep your family safe_ because even if you think I'm a piece of shit - and I don't blame you for thinking that - but I still think the world of you." He sits down and takes a deep breath and a drink of tea. "There. That's what I had to say."

Artemis’s mouth drops slightly open and she stares across the table at Asra, who’s tapping one foot rapidly against the floor. He holds his teacup close to his face, like a mask - no more like a shield against whatever his uncharacteristic contrition might precipitate. “Why are you telling me that?”

“I don’t . . . because I owe you? No, really, because we were friends once. Because you’ve proven that you have more sense than I do and I don’t know what to do about it. About any of this.”

“Is that true, Dema? Is the plague . . . ?”

I explain as efficiency as I can manage, which isn’t: plague beetles, possible contamination of the canals, the monster we’d seen. Her face grows graver the longer I speak. She saw it all, remembers it all. She had stayed in the city when so many people left, even after her own wife and child left. 

She catches my hands as I begin to meander on visiting the Magician’s realm and trying to make meaning from his cards. Her own hands start to tremble, and she draws her fingers into fists trying to stop them. “Shit.”

“I’m sorry. I should have already told you. Or maybe we shouldn’t have told you. Julian thinks he found a cure. Three years ago. He went looking for it in the palace dungeons, then, then he did this, and . . .” 

The words rush out, becoming even more incoherent as I speak. Asra sets his hand on mine, but his are shaking nearly as badly as my own. I turn my hand over under his, palm up, twining my fingers through his and trying to steady both of us. He leans his head close to mine. “Breathe, love.”

“It’s okay. Both of you. I don’t know what I would have done in your position. The Countess?”

“She knows. But she didn’t find out until people were already arriving in the city.”

“Yeah, every inn is full right now.” Artemis raises her hands to the side of her head and rubs her temples. “Shit. So, an announcement now would cause a panic, probably a riot. But if there’s an outbreak here and infected people leave . . . _Fuck_. And Julian simultaneously thinks he knows a cure and that he needs to get himself hanged?”

“We’re trying to figure out a way to stop it,” Asra says carefully. “I can’t watch that.”

Artemis raises a single eyebrow at him, then blinks rapidly before shaking her head, and laughing bitterly. “So now you care whether or not he dies? Is it convenient for you now, Asra? When it wasn’t three years ago, and you decidedly didn’t care one way or the other?”

Asra looks down at the table, lower lip trembling. “I . . . I deserve that.”

“Yes, you do! I can’t fucking believe this.”

“Artemis, I’m trying now to put right whatever I can.”

“Well, that’s not much is it, Asra? How the hell do you put anything right without -” Her eyes flick to me, and something - something so important that it can’t be spoken - hides still in the silence. She bites her lip before returning her sharp gaze to Asra. “Without just making things worse.”

All three of us sit in the uncomfortable layers of quiet: Artemis with her fear and anger, Asra visibly shrinking under the weight of the secrets he keeps and the shame that he can’t speak of, and me still completely unsure if I should trust either to tell me the truth - confused and getting more agitated because I’m not sure I care anymore what Asra may or may not have done three years ago, I just want to stop Julian from execution for something that he did not do.

Artemis breaks the silence. “You said Julian went hunting for this cure of his beneath the palace, in the old dungeons?”

“Yes.”

Her eyes grow darker as she drinks from her mug of tea. “And what did he say when he turned himself over to the guards? That he murdered Lucio, or something else?”

“Nadia asked him why he decided on now,” Asra replies. “He said something about being tired of running from his fate, but no, he didn’t actually say that he killed the Count. Not last night at least. He’s trying to weave a good story about it now.” 

She shakes her head slowly. “I don’t know if this is about Lucio then. I mean, not for Julian. Something went on in those dungeon labs. He made us - Dema, you and me both - swear we wouldn’t let any of the sick be sent to the palace. Whatever we needed to do to accomplish that.” Another shake of her head, and she closes her fingers around my hand again. “Dammit, Devorak.”

I jerk my hands away from both of them. “I am not letting him get himself hanged! No.”

“Dema, none of us want that.” Asra tries to catch my hand again, and I pull away, getting up from the reading table and starting to perambulate the room, which is far, far too small for this type of thing, because I can’t just sit here, still, not doing anything that is going to stop any of the awfulness from happening. 

“No.” My voice must be longer than I intended. Artemis jumps a little. She’s seen me like this before. I know. I know what this looks like, what it is. I just don’t care right now. “He is not going to get himself hanged. I am not letting that happen. I’ll do anything. I don’t care what. Take out a courtier or two. I could do that, right? I’ll cut a deal with the Devil. If I have to - if that’s what it takes.”

Every muscle in Asra’s body goes taut, and his face blanches at the saying I had tossed out carelessly. “We’re going to do everything we can, I promise. I’m not giving up, but don’t do something rash.”

“Someone has to do something rash! We can’t just sit here drinking tea and let Julian dig his own grave!”

“Sometimes you can’t save people from themselves.” Artemis gets out of her chair, and I let her pull me into a hug. “You can’t control the choices they make. I don’t want him dead either; if I can do something I will, but, sweetie -”

“I can’t let him die.”

“She’s right, Dema.” He’s turned at an angle that would be facing me, if he weren’t hunched over, head in his hands. “Trying to undo someone else’s choices is the worst mistake I ever made.” His eyes are misty when he raises his face. “Even if I’d make it again.” 

“We have to see what's in that dungeon, Asra.” I'm shaking. I think I might come out of my skin if I can't do something soon. Something to put the world back in order.

Artemis holds me tight and strokes my hair. “You may not like what you find.” 

“I don’t care!” A lie. I care very much about what I might find. But I have to know. To know so that I can stop whatever addlepated plan Julian has talked himself into believing is ‘better this way.’ I twist away from her. “I’m going. Alone if I have to.”

There’s nothing for me to pick up as I leave the shop; I had never set my bag down. Asra chases after me, shouting for me to wait. I can barely hear him - can barely process the words. All I can think of are the tears in Julian's eye and his whispered words, ‘I have loved you for so long.’ _So long._ A history behind my feelings that I had known him before, a reason why I understood endearments in a language I didn't speak. I have forgotten you and loved you for _so long_.

I ignore Asra all the way back to the palace library. He catches my shoulder as I reach for the trick books, forcing me to turn around and look at him. “Are you sure?”

I let his hands remain on my shoulders. “Do you know what I'll find down there?”

He shakes his head, violet eyes solemn. “No. But it won't be anything good.”

“I have to know, Asra.”

He kisses my forehead, then my mouth. “I'm coming with you then, dear heart.”

A muffled laugh startles us both. Behind us stands a tall, pale figure wearing some sort of horned headdress and a surgical mask. Quaestor Valdemar. The old boss that Julian speaks of with a shudder. The courtier who was in of whatever hellish things that had driven Julian to sign his own death warrant. I would punch them right in that mask if Asra wasn’t holding my arms.

“Young love, how precious, how fragile! Now you wouldn't be trying to get down into my operatory theater would you?”

Theater? The crypt from yesterday? 

Asra’s gaze is steely, and he stays silent. I can feel magic tingling where hand remains on my wrist. He’ll go with me, he’ll defend me from the Quaestor if needed, but he apparently isn't about to facilitate more than he must. I gather myself and stare into Valdemar’s unblinking red eyes. A deal with a devil . . .

“Yes, I'm looking for more information about Jul - Dr. Devorak’s work.”

“Dr. Devorak . . .” They close their eyes and go eerily still for a moment as if they’re somehow unaware of Julian’s arrest or the investigation Nadia tasked me with. When their eyes open, I almost convince myself that I hear and audible snap. “Oh yes, Dr. No. 069. Well, you must let me give you the full tour. It's been ages since I've taken anyone down!”

If the passageway descending to the undercellars of the palace was creepy yesterday, Valdemar’s presence makes it truly disturbing. There is no up and down movement as they walk, as if the mechanics of their body don’t follow anything akin to human. The cobwebs hanging from the ceiling are unmoved by the pointed headdress passing through them only to catch and stick across our faces. Asra keeps his hand tight around mine, fingers trembling, just slightly, and it’s unclear to me which of us the trembling begins or ends with.

Somehow the lift is now large enough for the three of us, as if Valdemar’s defiance of physics extends to it as well. There’s even enough space to maintain something of a buffer space between Valdemar and the two of us. Not enough. I don’t think that there could ever be sufficient space between me and Valdemar.

The air at the bottom of the lift is dank with humidity and rot. Valdemar pulls their surgical mask down from their face as Asra simultaneously wraps one scarf around my face and knots a second handkerchief over his nose and mouth. I tighten the scarf around my head. He’s not being overprotective - not this time. 

Valdemar inhales and exhales in an almost sexual moan. Their sharp teeth click together as they smile. “There are gloves and aprons too, if you silly little ducklings would like them.” They tilt their head at a rack on the wall, covered with blood-stained leather. The smile turns into a smirk. “Suit yourself.” 

From the bone saws still covered in dried gore to the pit of skittering red beetles, the lower dungeon is a nightmare. All made worse by Valdemar's nostalgic reflections on vivisection. How those silly little ducklings pretending to be scientists had rubbed their hands in dismay. “Zero-six-nine was the worst of them. Trying to hide that he was weeping. Making notes in his little books. Slipping out when he thought I wouldn’t notice.” Their hands trail over the metal slabs, wandering further into their disturbed little domain. Skittering - a thousand tiny razor feet over stone wells up as Valdemar approaches a sort of lipped bin built into the wall and covered with the stone slab. “At least disposing of the bodies was easy enough. Poor little things, they haven’t had a good meal in so long now.” 

Their arms reach out and grasp the edges of the stone lid. Shadows appear and disappear around them and the flat stone tips in ways that make no sense if it is being moved only by the two hands that can be seen. The floor reverberates as the stone slams into it and the skittering crescendos until the air is vibrating with it. A red beetle climbs over the lip and into Valdemar’s open palm. Asra gasps and places himself between me and the insects, defensive magic already sparking at his fingertips.

Valdemar simply looks up at us, still smiling, and gently strokes the beetle’s carapace with a single long, thin finger. “Only the strongest survive now. The ones willing to eat their brothers. Isn’t that right, Magician?” They place the beetle back into the pit and hiss down into the depths. “Not much longer now, my pretties.” The flat stone is hoisted back onto the pit, moving along vectors that again do not make sense if Valdemar’s visible hands are providing the force. Valdemar turns to us, thin lips pressed together. “But you didn’t come here to admire my children. You came for zero six nine’s silly little notes. Come.” 

Valdemar shows us Julian's old office - a cell really, but one that he had somehow managed to make comfortable - and slunk off to some other corner to relive their glory days of state-sponsored torture.

Asra shoves a discarded shoe into the doorway to keep it from closing entirely and shoves the door up against it, blocking out the worst of the horrors without out. Not enough. I’m not sure what would possibly be enough. A desk and cot leave very little room to move. Asra lights an oil lamp hanging in a corner and pulls the kerchief down from over his face. I follow his example, finding a half-burnt candle then a stick of incense to light and unwrapping his scarf from around my head. The air is almost breathable in here, helped by the candle and the incense. 

“I can't believe Julian was involved in this.”

“It wasn’t of his own will.” Asra picks up a carved wooden raven from one of the shelves along the wall and turns it over in his hands. He sinks down onto the cot, curling in on himself, suddenly looking very small. “During the plague, we all . . . We all did things we aren't proud of.”

Papers and books are scattered all over the desk. An inkwell has been upended, spilling across a half-written letter that wouldn’t have been legible anyway. What was it like to be shut in here - sick - knowing that death lurked outside, that death approached inside? An inky handprint stains the surface of the desk. I place my hand over it, stretching my fingers wide in an unsuccessful attempt to span it. I can almost feel his fingers there, warm and smooth, and a hand so much larger than mine. A book in a language that I don’t know, but that looks so familiar, is open beside it. My magic thrums in the back of my mind, a not quite ache at the base of my skull. There's a memory attached to this place - another kind of haunting, not the spirit of a person, but the residue of emotion, pain - if I want to reach out for it.

_The colors of the room wash out as I slip back into the memory. Julian hunches over his desk, clutching quill pen and muttering to himself. “It isn't working. Nothing is working.” He slumps back in his chair eyes directed at the ceiling. Both are stained carmine red and sweat beads on his forehead. Despite that, he's shaking from a chill. The plague. He was dying from it in the story Muriel told._

_He stumbles to the cot and wraps himself in a blanket, picking up a little carved fox from the shelf. “You better think of something quickly, Ilya. And you -” He stretches out on the bed, staring at nothing. “Is this . . . Is this how you felt?” He throws out his arm, knocking the shelf. The raven falls and knocks him on the head. He bolts upright, blinking rapidly. “That . . . That's it!” Grabbing a book from the pile beside his cot, he moves back to the desk, thumbing through the pages excitedly. He seizes a piece of chalk_ _and starts etching a symbol onto the wall behind him, as the memory fades._

I sit down beside Asra and my eyes travel to the wall Julian was beginning to draw on. A chalk design remains, scorch marks and mildew marring the wall behind it. I touch Asra’s hand. He looks up from the raven that he has been turning over in his hands since before I entered the memory. There's an entire row of the figures behind him, all intricately carved and colorfully painted, much like the ones we have in the shop. “Dema?”

“On the back wall, that symbol drawn in chalk. It's the same one on Julian's neck and -” I reach out and place my hand over his heart. “Your chest. What is it?”

“It's -” He goes silent and sets the raven back on the shelf, picking up a fox in its place.

“It's also in this book.” I hand him the book that was open on the desk, the one in a language I can't read. Asra turns the volume over in his hands, thumbing through the pages.

“This is mine. He wrote in my book.” His eyes narrow in annoyance. “Of course he did! And dog eared pages as well. Oh!” His eyes widen suddenly. “Oh, I think I know what he's trying to do.” He closes the book. Dust rises from the pages in a cloud. “Idiot. Fucking idiot.”

“What?”

“If, if he's trying what I think . . . Dema, you're going to have to be awfully persuasive to talk him out of it.”

“What is he doing?”

“I think that he's trying to contact the Hanged Man.”

“Like we did the . . . The Magician.” I didn’t manage to hide the distaste in my voice. “But Julian can't use magic!”

“I know. But death also breaks the boundaries between the realms, and Ilya's affinity is definitely the Hanged Man.” Asra takes the raven figurine back down from the shelf. “It's possible.”

“But he'd be dead.”

“I think he's counting on his mark to heal him.” He runs his fingers over the raven then tucks it into the bag at his side. “I didn't say he had a good plan.”

* * *

Valdemar had disappeared when we gave up searching Julian's office for any other clues as to what he had done in the past or might be planning to do now. Asra collected a few of the carvings from the shelf: the little raven he hadn't let go of, a brightly painted opossum that he pressed into my hands without an explanation, and violet fox. Luckily the lift worked, and we found our way back to the library.

We're both still shaking as we push the trick door closed behind us. Asra tugs me over to his cushion nest and pulls me down with him. I let him cradle me against his chest, as it rises and falls with his breath, and listen to his heartbeat, still stuttering and off beneath his ribs. I push aside his shirt and press my cheek against the soft skin.

“What do the marks mean?”

His fingers trace over my jaw. “They mark a trade - a deal made between whoever bears it and one of the arcana.”

“That doesn't sound like Julian. Involving himself with magic?”

“Desperate people do desperate things.” He twists a lock of my hair in his fingers. “A bargain to cure the plague? Hardly seems unreasonable.”

“What did you bargain for?”

He's quiet, choosing his words carefully. “You, dear heart.” His arm tightens around me. “Just you.”

“What do you mean?”

“I - I still don't know how to explain.”

“Was I sick?” I lean over him, looking down at his face.

“Yes.” The vowel is drawn out; the entire word hesitant. There's something else there. An 'and' that he doesn't want to say. 

“I had the plague?” That damned ringing starts in my ears as my lips form the words, and I can't keep my eyes from pinching shut. I had the plague, and . . . An excruciating burst of red light behind my eyes, and I drop back against Asra's chest. Something else, but he isn't going to answer. And perhaps he's right that he shouldn't. Not right now.

Asra's hand sooth over my back and his lips press against the top of my head. “Nap with me a bit, love? You didn't sleep at all last night.”

I let him hold me against him: plagues, and bargains, and the horrible, horrible sense that with each passing heartbeat we're getting farther from saving Julian. “Why does it hurt so?”

His fingers are feather light over my spine. “I'm so sorry, love.”

I don’t quite sleep, but I manage to doze, mind wandering through half formed images, as Asra’s hands continue gently working up and down my back and he hums in my ear.


	3. Leaden Trumpets Spit the Soot of Power - NSFW

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from St Vincent, "Paris is Burning"

__

_Four years ago. January._

“It's gauche.”

“Have you ever met Lucio? Of course, it's gauche. Everything about him is gauche.”

“Well, okay, this is extra gauche.” I shook the rinse water from the kale I had picked earlier and flipped the leaves over to cut out the toughest parts of the ribs. Asra had a trick of caramelizing the greens with onions that I hadn't quite figured out yet, but the batch I fixed the night before had been closer to his. If I defined closer as merely edible. Maybe I'd get the proportions of onion and garlic right this time. Or the level of heat. Or any of the other possible variables.

“But you'll still come with me, right?”

Julian - even more useless than I am in the kitchen - leaned against the counter, watching me roll the leaves and chop them into wide strips. Even with half the city dead or dying, the Count was still planning to host a multi-night masquerade for his birthday. And apparently, the Count insisted on Julian's attendance.

“It just doesn't seem right.” I tossed a handful of the kale into the skillet and jumped back as the grease crackled and splattered everywhere. Ah well. At least I had managed to saute the onions and garlic instead of burning them. Progress. “Besides, how will he even know if you're there? Everyone's in masks and there are a lot of people. Just spin some lie about missing him if he asks later.”

“He'll know.”

“Why's he so obsessed with you?” I grabbed a pinch of salt from the cellar by the stove and sprinkled it over the greens. I hadn't cooked them with salt last night and adding it at the table hadn't made them taste right. The baker told me this morning that when you add the salt does matter, as it draws water out of the vegetables and changes how they actually cook. “If someone cut off my arm, I probably wouldn't much care to see them again.”

“I didn't _actually_ cut off his arm. Hell, they, uh, still barely trusted me to carry off amputated limbs.”

“I stand corrected. If someone walked off with my arm that had just been . . . Good lord, this conversation got weird.”

Julian groaned and covered his face with his hands. “We had, um, a thing for a while. I was young and stupid, and really, he wasn’t bad to me . . .”

“Seriously?”

Julian nods at me, eyelids flickering with apprehension.

“Okay, so the Count is an ex-lover from back when you were both mercenaries, and he’s decided he’s interested in you again?”

“Didn’t quite know if or how to tell you. Um, I mean, I'm not interested in him, not now, ugh . . .”

“Should I be jealous and threatened?” I reach up and touch his chin. Nothing to be gained from jumping at the shadow of each former lover. We could play at that game for a long time between the two of us. “I mean, I can fake it if you want.” 

A huge, relieved sigh leaves Julian’s chest, and I feel his lips press against the top of my head. “Sorry. I should have told you before; it’s just an overwhelming amount of awkward, you know, with Lu being well, Lu. But I'd still rather not piss him off.”

“And you need me there because -? I’m not mad at you. I just really don’t think he should be throwing a party right now.”

“Can't I just want to see you in a pretty dress?” He looped an arm around my waist, spun me away from the stove, and dipped me back. “And if I'm dancing I'd much rather dance with you.”

“So you need me to come to keep you safe from the big scary count?”

Julian affected a pout. “Pretty please.”

“Oh, all right. I'll go.”

He laughed and picked me up again, kissing each of my cheeks, then my mouth. I smacked him with a wooden spatula until he put me down. The greens had already started to burn. I push them around with the spatula, then grab a towel that’s already been scorched multiple times to lift them off the heat. Too late. Probably still edible though if I'm careful to leave the charred bits in the skillet.

At least the cornbread hadn’t burned. And it actually rose this time, thanks to some fresh baking powder that Selasi had slipped me with a laugh when I complained to him that I could have used my last attempt as a lethal weapon. With that improvement and a bit of goat cheese, I’d traded eggs for, the meal was almost worth eating. Not that Julian has ever complained. 

“I do have something I can wear. It's just, maybe a bit daring.”

“Oho? I like the sound of that.” He folded his hands under his chin and stared intently across the table at me. “Can I see?”

“That's actually a good idea.”

“I had a good idea?”

“Yes, I should make sure it still fits.” I glanced away and then looked back at Julian with half-lidded eyes. “And it's a bit easier to get into with two people. Well, maybe not easier. More fun.”

“Now, I really like the sound of this.”

“Of course you do. Lech.”

The dress was from two years ago, right after I'd gotten the tattoo across my chest and stomach finished, and I had wanted to show it off. Thus, the word dress might actually be a stretch for what the outfit actually consisted of. I let Julian pull the box down from the high shelf in the closet, stripping out of my everyday clothes as he did. He turned back around and stopped, staring at me and hiding the box in front of him. 

“What? This is hardly the first time you've seen me naked.”

“Mmmm, I can still enjoy looking, can't I?”

“I suppose. If you're good.” I reached up to tap a finger against the top of his nose, took the box from his hands, and started unpacking what looked more like a pile of red and gold silk rags than a dress onto the bed. He watched, mouth just slightly open as I held up a garter belt. “So this goes on first.” I wrapped the belt around my waist and turned around to let him cinch the fastening. His hand gratuitously skimmed my waist and hips as he did. I turned back and sat on the edge of the bed. The stockings were rolled up in one corner of the box. “Then these.” I leaned over and slid my foot into the silk, pulling it on slowly. My hands were about halfway up my calf when Julian's hands closed on them. He was kneeling in front of me, a most delightfully wanton expression on his face.

“Let me.” His voice was low. He finished rolling the stocking up my leg - running his fingers around the finished edge around my thigh for good measure - and leaned his head against my other knee, eyes closed, one side of his lip rolled under his teeth. I slid my fingers under his chin and lifted his head, handing him the other stocking as I did. He lifted my other foot, running his fingers along the instep with just the right amount of pressure before working the stocking over my foot and pulling it so very slowly up my leg. 

I stood up. Julian took the clips and fixed them at the tops of the stocking, front first, then the ones in back. He wrapped his hands around my ass and pulling my center to his mouth. My lips curling into a smile, I allowed him a moment and then pushed him back.

“Not yet, darling. Don’t get greedy.” I reached behind me and found the next piece of the costume: a pair of tap pants constructed from deep crimson silk, open at the sides. Julian groaned with disappointment as I pulled them over my hips. “Patience.” The skirt draped around my hips, solid fabric covering about half my thighs, them falling away into thin feathery strips. I turned around. “Think you can tie a sash?”

“Did you just ask if I can tie a knot? Darling, I can tie a sash, a rope, a thread -” I touched my fingers to his lips with a laugh, and he pulled the sash tight around my waist, knotted the ends together, then stood up, warm hands running up the bare skin of my back. He kneaded my shoulders, pulling a sigh from my lips, and I leaned over to pick up the indecently scanty top. It was a single long strip of cloth that wrapped around my waist, crossed over my stomach once, crossed in the back, and passed over my breasts and being tied at the back of my neck. Julian lifted my hair out of the way as I tied a knot at the back of my neck, leaving the ends to hang down my back. The final pieces - other than the mask - were long gloves that reached above my elbows.

I stepped over to the long mirror on the wall. “I don't know how Anna let me out of the house in this.” I knew that I had been in a _mood_ , but it must have been quite an altered mental state if this had seemed like a good idea. Not that I looked bad. I looked -

“- Ravishing.” Julian's hands ran up my sides. “I don't know if I want to let you out of the house in this.” He pulled me back against him. “I'm the jealous one here.”

“Mmmm . . . Well, if my objective was to show off ink, this certainly accomplished that.” The phoenix tattoo running across my torso was barely obscured by the winding top, head clearly visible above my breast and tail feathers cascading down my side. I turned around, hands against Julian's chest and peered over my shoulder at my essentially naked back. “Nope, not this year, but -” I pulled away from him and reached back in the box. The costumer had insisted I take an additional measure of the red silk so that, if I ever wanted to alter the outfit, I'd have something from the same dye lot. Folding the fabric into a rough triangle, I knotted two ends behind my neck then wrapped the other two corners around my waist, creating a simple halter top. A glance in the mirror confirmed that this would do. My back was bare, but my front was adequately covered. “Problem solved.”

“Hmm . . .” He ran his hands down my arms, then leaned down and kissed the back of my shoulder. “You might still catch a few things - or people - on fire.”

“It might be a risk I have to take.”

“Mmm . . .” Julian turns me around so that I’m facing him again. “There are a couple of other possible combinations that I’d, um, like to see. Can I? Please.”

“You have been helpful.” I brushed my fingertips over his lips. “I suppose you've earned something.”

He pulled me tight against him and slid his hands back down my back to my waist to undo the knot he had tied there. The skirt fell away and he tapped his fingers against the sides of my thighs, where they’re exposed by the slits in the tap pants. “I like these,” he murmured. “The lace, that’s a, uh, good touch.” He slipped his fingers underneath the fabric, following my hipbones around, barely touching between my legs before moving up again, and back around my waist to undo the knot tied in the folded scarf. The fabric loosened, and he drew his hands up the front of my body underneath it, pausing for just a moment to circle his thumbs around my nipples before pushing the scarf up and over my head. He looked me up and down, rubbing his chin with exaggerated consideration. “I like this too. As long as I don’t have to share it.”

“I don’t intend to make you.” I reached out and started undoing the buttons on his shirt, pushing it off his shoulders and to the floor. “But I reserve the right to change my mind.”

“Oh, that’s cruel.”

“Well, make sure you continue to keep me happy then.”

He lifted me so that my face was level with his. “I can do that,” he whispered, bending his head forward to kiss my neck. His lips worked up, and then his teeth closed around my earlobe, pulling and biting gently. I moaned against him, and he set me down on the edge of the bed, kneeling between my legs again, and hooking his fingers into the waistband of the tap pants. I lifted my hips, letting him pull them off and toss them aside. His lips pressed to the inside of each thigh, lingering a moment before he pulled me forward, tongue running along my slit. I groaned and spread my legs wider, wrapping one hand around the back of his head, and pressing him closer to me, leaning back on my elbow. Teasing, he turned his head away from my center, sucking and biting at the inside of one thigh. I let him, so incredibly, perfectly fine with allowing this to be drawn out. He pushed me back on the bed, lips finding mine, hands pushing aside the scarf to get at my breasts. I reached behind my neck and undid the knot there, letting him pull aside the strip of fabric, giving him a minute or two to get a very satisfying mouth around one nipple, the other being circled pleasantly by a thumb. His hands were always so soft - comes of wearing gloves most of the time.

I put my hands on his shoulders and pushed him away from me. “On your back, love. Hands above your head.” He arched an eyebrow at me, then rolled over, as quick to comply as ever. I straddled his torso and leaned over him, biting and sucking at his neck. Plenty hard to leave the marks that he liked. He groaned and his hands found their way down my back. I jerked his hair at that - harder than I've really liked but nowhere near as hard as he really liked. “Did I say you could touch me?”

“No.” His lips curved in a smile. He'd done that on purpose. I jerked on his hair again. 

“Put them back.” I reached down beside us and grabbed that strip of silk. Leaning over him again, I wrapped an end around one wrist, looped the fabric through the slotted headboard, then tied it about his other wrist. While I tied the knots, he lifted his head enough to drag his tongue around one breast. I sat back up, looking down at him. Then I tugged the glove off my right hand with my teeth and ran my thumb over his bottom lip, before sliding it in his mouth. “Aren't you feeling at liberty this evening?” I pulled my thumb from his mouth and leaned close to him and dropped my imperative intonation. “Are you good, darling?” He nodded enthusiastically, and I slipped two fingers in his mouth, letting him suck on them. “I think you better finish what you started.” When I pull my fingers from his mouth he breathed a single word: please. I turned myself about, positioning my cunt over his face and stretching my body out along his torso. He put that lovely mouth to good use, running his tongue along my center, then pushing into circle my clit. I couldn't quite reach his cock with my mouth, so I settled on lazily running my hands along the shaft and around the head at what I hoped was a frustratingly slow pace. That was until Julian's oh-so-clever tongue had me mewling with pleasure and bucking my hips against his face. I came with my face pressed against his stomach to muffle my cries, hands and arms wrapped tight around his waist and fingers digging into his thighs. His mouth pulled back, changing tactics to press gentle kisses against the inside of my leg.

I roll to the side, still breathing heavily, one gloved hand and one ungloved dragging over his skin. I push aside his waistband and kiss his hip. “God, sweetheart.” I sit up in bed, leaning back over his face and kiss him deeply. He lifts his head, tongue pressing into my mouth. Back down his neck then, hitting the same spots I had nipped at before, pulling a pleased groan from Julian. His chest, then I’m half upright, undoing the fastenings off Julian’s trousers, running my mouth along his cock. He lifts his hips helpfully as I work the tight trousers from his legs. “Good boy.” I checked the scarf around his wrists, just to make sure it hasn't tightened unduly, and pulled off my remaining glove and draped it over his eyes. “Your choice, whether that stays or not.” My only answer was another pleased moan as I rub my hand over the taut planes of his stomach.

Julian breathed hard as I went through the drawer by the bed for a vial of oil, then drizzled it over his stomach and my hands. His hips lifted again, seeking contact, but he kept his head still, letting the silk glove remain over his eyes. I closed one hand around the base of his cock and moved it up and down a couple of times, before leaning over and closing my lips around the tip. His breath caught for a second and I switched hands, letting the right drift lower, fingertips circling his hole. One of his legs bent and told out of to the side. Better access. I leaned over and kissed the inside of his thigh, then the head of his cock again, all while slowly pushing in with my middle finger. He's biting his bottom lip and the pale skin across his chest is closed ever so fetchingly when I glanced up. "You good, sweetness?" A half gasped yes. A little more oil, and I worked a second finger into him, pumping them slowly time with the motions of my mouth on his cock. The noises he made were as beautiful as everything else about him. Curling them then, until his hips were moving, and he gasped my name as much for permission as for warning, and I sunk my mouth back down and swallowed around him.

Rubbed my hand over his stomach, following with my lips, as I slipped my fingers slowly out of him, wiped those on a short heard for the laundry anyway, and untied Julian's wrists. He looped one arm around my shoulders and pulled me down onto his chest, nuzzling the top of my head. “I really like those stockings.”

“Duly noted.” I was still wearing them, held up by the silk belt around my waist. His hand trailed down along my thigh, spiraling over the paper-thin silk. I touched my fingers to his bottom lip. It’d bled a little from where he bit it. The tiniest pulse of magic sufficed to heal it. 

“You don’t have to.”

“Mmm.” I nipped at his neck again. “I’ll leave you your bruises.”

“Lovebites . . . sounds better.” 

“Lovebites then.” I wiggled out of his arms and kissed his mouth. “Back in a moment, love.”

He was half asleep when I came back, hands washed and water splashed on my face. I kissed his eyelids. He turned his head into my hand and mumbled something as I dabbed a damp rag across his face, then tightened his arms around me as a snuggled back up to him and pulled a blanket over both of us.

* * *

The alcohol flowed freely in the palace. I held my wine glass by the stem and marveled at the rich red liquid. Wine had gotten scarce in the city over the last few months as suppliers from the hinterlands were unwilling or unable to bring their stock into the city. The palace appeared to have no such problem. Servants prowled the ballroom and the halls, quickly refilling any glasses that were more than half empty.

It wasn’t that I minded. It was a nice change from the white lightning I had been drinking recently. Besides the booze was taking the edge off of being in the unfamiliar halls and surrounded by unfamiliar people. The palace had been open during the masquerade every year, but Asra and I had never bothered to go. There was plenty of fun to be had in the streets, and Asra had seemed particularly disinclined the few times I had mentioned it.

Julian kept a hand on me, either around my waist or on my arm, as he chatted up his myriad friends and acquaintances. He knew someone around every corner and could recall all the pertinent information, asking about family members, pets, hobbies. I shook hands and smiled and schmoozed - and let the servants continue to refill my glass. Most other guests seemed to be operating on the same theory of letting the alcohol wash the rough edges of the incongruity of celebrating while the city died.

“Are you alright?” Julian pulled me into a relatively deserted room and lifted my mask off my face. His own costume was relatively simple: a dark suit and black half mask, radiating red rays. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have talked you into coming when you didn’t want to. We can go. I can take you home, or -”

“Julian, honey, it’s okay. I just don’t know anyone other than you, and the energy here is . . . off.”

“Yeah.” He leaned down and kissed my forehead before putting my mask back on and adjusting it. “Off, uh, off is a pretty good word for this place.” He wrapped his fingers around mine. “Come with me. This. You might like this.”

He pulled me to a darkened, quiet room, pressing a finger against my lips as he pushed through the swinging doors. Inside, the space had been transformed by a skillful illusionist into a night sky. But not a city night, with lights and noises. Instead, it was the quiet night of a remote area - stars and moon brilliant above us. I gasped in delight as Julian tugged me over to one of the chaises scattered about the room. Still holding my hands in his, he sat down and leaned his face close to mine, voice a low whisper.

“I haven't seen stars like this since the last time I was on a ship. In the middle of the ocean, no lights around.” Julian took off his mask and gazed up at the illusion with his vision unimpeded. “Have you ever . . .?”

“At home.” I sank down next to him. The movement echoed the sensation in my chest as I remembered my father teaching me constellations and waking me in the middle of the night to see a meteor shower. I was a little child then, still sweet, and not the difficult disaster he abandoned to his aunt's care. “There weren't lights at night. Not like the city. So you could see all the stars.”

“Dema?” Julian cupped his hand around my jaw, running his thumb under the edge of my mask and along my cheek, brushing aside a tear.

“I'm okay. Just memories.”

“Good or bad?”

I took off my mask, set it aside, and leaned against the sloping back of the chaise and grabbed Julian's arm tugging him down with me. “Both.” I curled against his chest, looking up at the transformed ceiling above. The illusion ran on a long loop. We watched it twice, snuggled against each other in the dark, before leaving behind the quiet to return to the muted revelry of the masque. 

* * *

The ballroom was moderately full when we returned to it. A look of panic passed over Julian’s face and he quickly pulled me off the dancefloor to one of the sides of the room. 

“What is it?” I looked back over my shoulder at the costumed mass.

“Just someone I’d rather keep you far away from. Let’s, um, get some more wine.” He tugged me over to where a serving table had been set up and handed me an overfull glass of red before taking one for himself.

“Who?”

“The boss. I honestly didn’t think they’d, erm, emerge for this.”

“Jules!”

Julian closed his eyes and took a deep breath at the voice behind us. He opened them as a golden hand clasped his shoulder.

“My lord.”

The count stood beside him, blonde hair pushed back from a made-up face. He wore a white suit, the jacket adorned with a garish number of decorations. Most - I had heard of good authority - self-awarded. A few feet behind him a bored looking woman with magnificent purple hair determinedly drank wine and chatted quietly with another guest.

“I told you that you didn’t want to miss this! And who is this delicious like morsel you've brought?” He bowed to me, extended his well-manicured right hand. I reluctantly extended mine and let him kiss my fingertips. As I do, I get a glance at his boots. As I expected, he was wearing a not insignificant heel to get anywhere near Julian’s height.

“Agnes Strayhorn,” I gave him my middle name, somehow unwilling to let the rakish man have my personal one and raise my eyes back to his eyes. There was an uncomfortably predatory gleam in them as he surveyed my face and body. This man was used to getting what he wanted. I took a calculated half step closer to Julian. 

“What a fascinating costume! I'd love to examine how it's put together.” There was a faint twang to Lucio’s voice - vowels pronounced high in the mouth, almost nasalized, and drawn out - the remnants of an accent I recognized. It sounded like . . . Not quite home. Just a bit further to the south and higher in the mountains - well past the good cropland. Sometimes folk from there would come to town in the spring - lean and hungry and ready to trade furs for whatever grain and storage vegetables were available. Or sometimes we'd hear stories of feuds between different extended families that ran for generations.

“There's a private gathering in my wing after midnight.” A cold metal finger brushed under my chin before I could take another step backward. “You should come - both of you. I'll leave word with the guards.”

“Dear, didn’t you mean to speak to the head of the vintner’s guild?” The woman with purple hair curled her fingers around the count’s arm and pulled him back from me. The countess then? “He’s over there with Valerius.”

“Aww, Noddy, now’s -”

“- A perfectly good time to convince him to sell that vineyard you've been coveting since he’ll have been drinking himself. Go on, now.” She gave the count a little shove and with an unwelcome parting wink at me, he walked away. The countess looked over the two of us. “I see I must once again apologize for my husband’s boorish behavior.” She pressed the fingers of her free hand to her temple. “Dr. Devorak, I hope you and your guest can enjoy the rest of the evening.” With that, she turned and walked away, particularly gliding across the floor.

Julian pulled me against him. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine. He’s exactly as gauche as I expected though.” I pulled away from Julian and finished my wine in a single gulp before setting the glass down on the serving table. “But, uh, now that you’ve been officially witnessed in attendance, do you think we could go home?”

Julian readjusted his mask and finished his own wine. “Of course, my darling. Bit relieved to be exiting myself. Hopefully without any bears.”


	4. Can You Sleep with a Panic Switch?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Silversun Pickups, "Panic Switch."
> 
> Thanks to [MotherOfCups](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MotherOfCups/pseuds/MotherOfCups) for beta'ing.

_Now._

Portia and Asra talk me into eating a few mouthfuls of dinner in the library, and she reluctantly brings me a pot of coffee when I insist. All the obvious books on the nature of the Arcana and their realms are spread out on the floor in front of me, with less obvious ones that Asra pulled from the shelves. Portia provided several massive sheets of foolscap, which I’ve already covered with notes and inkblots and twisting lines that try to connect one idea to the latter, or the former, or something else entirely. It makes no more sense outside my skull than it did inside, whirring around all those folds and squiggles that Julian had sketched. 

If Julian struck a deal with the Hanged Man for the cure to the plague, there must be multiple ways to reach him - some way to recover the information that doesn’t involve Julian’s death. I asked Asra if we could just do it ourselves, the way that we had spoken to the Magician. But that’s only easy for Asra because an affinity exists between the two of them. Other realms can be reached, with the proper preparations, with the right maps, so to speak, but even with all that, it was far too easy to become lost in the travel, stumbling from one Arcanum’s domain to another, trapped even by less benevolent forces. I don’t need to trust him for the information. All the books in front of me reiterate that the Hanged Man is particularly demanding and the route to his realm can be torturous even when successful. Reasonable, I suppose. What else would one expect from an entity with the nature of the Hanged Man? A sandy path lined with roses? Perhaps a detailed travelogue, kindly annotated with warnings to avoid common dangers?

An hour or so short of midnight, I convince Asra to leave me and go back to the guest room - his or mine doesn’t matter because I’m going to stay in the library and work - and get some sleep himself. I’m not going to keep him awake again, with my pacing and murmuring and my note-making. The library door opens. I watch from the floor as Nadia walks in, holding a candle, and sits down beside me, arranging her elegant robes with habitual twitches of her fingers. She pats my hand. “I thought I might find you here, dear. Where's Asra?”

“Sent him to bed. He didn't get much sleep last night.”

Without makeup, her own eyes are lost in dark circles. “And you?”

“I dozed a bit this afternoon.”

Her lips press together as she glances at the large pot of coffee, mostly empty by now. I think she might be genuinely worried about me. Or she's very good at playacting. I suppose they're equally likely, but the first is appealing in a certain way. Someone worrying about me who's strong enough to bear it. For all the little lies he tells himself, Asra isn’t actually strong enough, and no magic will make it so.

“I wouldn't be able to sleep anyway. The coffee helps me concentrate. Some, that is.”

“Come.” She stands and shakes out her skirts. “Walk with me a bit on the veranda. I too am having trouble sleeping. I would discuss my thoughts with you.”

We stroll out to the veranda in silence. Nadia’s owl lands next to her on the railing with a soft coo, and she reaches out, absently stroking the bird’s head. “There will be a trial. I would like you to present the evidence you've found of Dr. Devorak's innocence.”

“To the court? Nadia, I don't believe anything I say would make any difference.”

“No. To the people. Present what you know, then the people of the city will vote on the question. My courtiers have claimed that capturing Devorak was for the city's sake, so they can hardly protest if the populace determines that he's innocent.”

“The entire city, my lady? Not a jury?”

“Ah, so you're familiar with the legal system of Prakra?” She seems pleased. “I must stop underestimating you, dear.” 

I'm rather impressed with myself when I manage to not respond to the statement. She probably meant it as a compliment. “A small jury would be more manageable. If the entire populace can vote this will be more theatre than trial.” And if the popular narrative is the one Julian and I saw in the theater, much of the city already believed that he did murder the count. Granted some of them might declare him innocent because they inwardly applauded the Count's death. How I am supposed to argue against both popular belief and whatever story Julian spins up for himself?

“Unfortunately - at least in this case - Vesuvia remains independent of Prakra’s Empire, and there is no precedent here for trial by jury. However, I can justify this as an extension of the trial by combat that my late husband was so fond of. A more civilized combat of words, but combat nonetheless.”

“And I'm to be your champion?”

“No, you're to be Dr. Devorak's champion.”

“Nadia, I - that is, I'm not -”

“I believe you'll do quite well delivering an impassioned plea for justice.”

I stop and turn to face the garden, gripping the railing tightly, tight enough that my knuckles go white. Nadi’s owl leans over and butts her head against my arm. “Nadia, this - this is no small burden.”

Fingers close around my shoulder as though Nadia fears that I’ll run and wants to forestall me. As if I would refuse to defend Julian, even if he deserves a far better champion than me. “I know, Dema, I'm sorry to put you into this position.”

I bite my lower lip and the bird nips at my sleeve reiterating Nadia’s subtle command to not run. “Not just you. Julian didn't have to turn himself in.”

“No. He didn't. Did you and Asra find anything?”

I force myself to relax my hands. “Julian thinks that if he dies, he can contact the Hanged Man, and recover the cure for the plague.”

Quiet. “I'm sorry. What?”

“He must have done it before. That mark on Asra's chest, you remember?”

“Yes.”

“It's a sign of having cut a deal with one of the Arcana. Julian has one too.” My fingers lift to my throat. 

“And the Hanged Man holds the cure for the plague?”

“Julian believes that he does.”

“I don't understand. How will dying help?”

“Death - or rather the act of dying - breaks the boundaries between realms. Julian must have been able to access the Hanged Man before when he was dying of the plague. And he seems to think he can do it again.”

“But if he's hanged, how will he share the cure?”

“Whatever deal he made left him with some sort of magic. He can heal physical injuries. His own and others. I suppose he thinks it'll work for a broken neck.”

“That might be the worst plan I've ever heard.”

I snort, not exactly in amusement. “I’m inclined to agree with you, my lady.”

“Is there anything else that I should know?”

I run my hand up and down the column closest to me, tracing my fingers along the swirling patterns in the marble. “Are you aware that Valdemar has some sort of lab beneath the palace?”

The owl hoots and shakes herself, puffing out her feathers to look even bigger than her already impressive size. “They maintained a research facility in the old dungeons during the plague. I would assume that it still exists.”

“Yes.” My fingers clench together into a fist that I let drop back against the railing. “How much do you know about their research?”

She holds her breath for a moment, then releases it slowly. “I know that Lucio gave them carte blanche to do as they pleased.”

“And you?”

Her hands tense and her knuckles whiten. “I did not stop them. One of my many failures.”

“They have a pit there. Filled with plague beetles. Apparently, they used to feed the bodies of victims to them. After they finished their . . . research.”

She tilts her head to the side, drawing and releasing a carefully measured breath. “That is inconvenient news.”

“There’s no chance that you can remove the Quaestor?” While I would prefer that he be removed before tomorrow, it doesn’t seem wise to demand a date. Too much like a command to appeal to Nadia without offending, and I doubt that she could accomplish it anyway.

“What do you think?”

“That you would need the entire army and even that might not be sufficient. They aren’t human.”

“Well, that at least isn’t a revelation.”

“What does Valerius think?”

She laughs bitterly. “I seem to have moved my chess pieces at precisely the wrong time.”

“My lady?”

“The Consul is currently confined to his house. Indisposed.”

“Indisposed?” 

“I gave him an ultimatum: give up the wine or give up his position. I need him sober if he is to help me, I just didn’t realize I would need it so soon.”

“Your sisters? Can they assist you?”

“Without bringing in one of Prakra’s armies, no.” 

We stand in silence, listening to a mockingbird chirp at the both of us. “Is it possible that I could speak to the Consul? Before the trial.”

“Why?”

“Because I have no idea how to do this, and I feel like he might.”

“I doubt he'll be of much use to you in his present state, but if you wish.” She turns away from the railing and starts back inside. “I'll have to write you a note. I forbade visitors. But still, he's likely awake now. And he might be glad of the company.”

* * *

Nadia sends me to Valerius’s townhouse in one of her carriages. There are guards, gray-haired and bored, posted in the entry hall. They look over the note Nadia provided me and call for one of the household staff to guide me back to the Consul’s room. The severe-faced maid leads me through darkened, quiet hallways and pushes over a dark wood door that strikes me as understated after my time in the palace. 

Valerius sits on the edge of the bed, head clutched in his hands. Most of his hair is pulled back from his face, but a few locks have escaped and lay lank and sweat-soaked around his face. An elderly woman sits by the bed, knitting in her lap. She stands when the door is opened and rubs Valerius' shoulder gently before walking over to me. Her position in front of me blocks my brief view of Valerius.

"I am Septima. I keep Lord Valerius’s house. Who are you?" The expression on her face is decidedly skeptical, and I think, more than a touch protective. She’s more than a hired retainer; rather, she’s someone who genuinely cares about him. An old nurse, perhaps?

"Dema, ma'am. I'm . . . Nadia sent me." I push the sealed note into her hand and try to peer around her. She shifts subtly while she looks over the note, counting my attempt. "Has a doctor seen to him?"

"Her Excellency's orders were quite strict. I've thought to send for one anyway, but he also said not to."

"How long since he last had a drink?"

"Approximately two days."

"Food? Water?"

"As much as I can get him. Are you a doctor, miss?"

"Um, no, but I'm an herbalist. Has he had any seizures?”

The woman’s lips press into a tight line. “One.”

“How long ago?”

“Eight, perhaps nine hours ago. That's when I tried to convince him to let me send for a doctor.”

She should have sent for one anyway; certainly, money isn’t a concern. And Nadia isn’t terrifying enough to risk his life over the potential of offending - is she? “Paper? Do you have paper?”

“Yes. I-” She goes to the desk in the corner and fetches back paper and a stub pencil. As she does, Valerius raises his just enough to see me. One corner of his downturned lips rises slightly.

“Hello, witch.” 

Septima pauses next to him, pushing a lock of hair back from his face and touching the back of her hand to his forehead. He says something to her, and she returns to me, offering a sheet of fine heavy paper and an incongruously gnawed on pencil. “Here you are.”

I snatch the paper from her and start scribbling down a list of herbs. “You need these. And now. Any apothecary should carry them. Brew them as a tea in these proportions, and bring it up as soon as you can. It will help.”

She takes the paper from me and looks it over. “Poppy? Miss, her Excellency was quite specific about -”

“I’ll explain to Nadia. And you’ll be reducing the poppy with each batch. Fairly quickly.”

“Very well. I’ll send a maid.” She glances back at Valerius. “Will you -?”

“I’ll see to Valerius for the moment. He does know me.”

The woman nods then turns to call for one of her staff.

Valerius still has his head clutched in his hands, rocking back and forth. “Consul. Valerius, can you hear me?”

His eyes are wide behind lank, sweat soaked locks of hair when he looks up at me. Poor man. I push his hair back from his face. He’s shaking, skin clammy beneath my hand. He blinks rapidly. “Witch? It actually is you.”

“Yep.” I grin at him. “That’d be me.”

“I. Forgive me. I . . . see things. What are you -?”

“Talk of that later. Can I have your hand?”

He extends his right hand to me, shaking worse as he holds it out. I turn it over, palm up, and fold my fingers around his wrist. His pulse is racing underneath the pale skin. I fold my fingers around his and hold out my other hand, inviting him to take him. He grasps my fingers tightly. “I keep seeing those damned bugs. Crawling on me. Then they aren’t there.”

“I know, Valerius. I know.” And I would bet good money that the damned bugs are red. At least these aren’t real. “Can you straighten your back a bit?” He tries, struggling to pull his shoulders out of the hunch they’re locked in. “Okay, good. Listen to me, I want you to breathe in while I count to four, through your nose, then you’re going to hold that while I count to seven, then breathe out very slowly, eight counts. Alright.” The first few cycles are hard for him, shakes getting in the way, and at one point he curls back in on himself, muttering something that sounds like a child’s prayer and clutching at my hands. I coax him back upright, and eventually, he falls into the breathing pattern on his own, without me counting for him. I murmur reassurances and rub the backs of his hands. The movement of his eyes behind the lids slows as the breathing works its magic. Not enough. But the best I can do for him until Septima returns. 

Finally, his eyes open and he looks at me properly, lips twitching into something halfway between a sneer and smile, neither especially convincing. “You look like shit, little witch.” I arch one eyebrow at him. He closes his eyes, then opens them again, mirroring my expression. “That’s fair.” 

His pulse has slowed a little beneath my fingertips, still too fast, but better. “I haven’t slept since Julian turned himself in.”

“Devorak did what?” He sounds actually distressed.

“Nadia didn’t tell you.”

“No.” Valerius curses and runs the back of his hand over his face. “Probably thought I would insist on trying to do something. Not that there’s much I can manage at the moment.”

I grab his hand. “Breath again, Consul.” Another minute or so, and I feel like I can tell him a little more. “There’ll be a trial, tomorrow. Then she plans to let the city vote on whether he lives or dies. She wants me to speak in Julian’s defense. How do I do that? Does Vesuvia even have a law code?”

“Not one that anyone has read in years. I’m afraid it won’t help you. For what Nadia proposes, you need to be more of a showman than a lawyer.” He groans and lays back on the sweat soaked bed. “There’s no saving this damned place or anyone in it from themselves. I’ve tried.”

“And then you gave up.”

“Yes. I gave up.” 

“Is that what you think I should do?”

“I think you wouldn’t listen to me.”

“Why did you agree to this then? Why not just disappear from the court, go home?”

Valerius laughs bitterly. “Because . . . because just maybe, with enough time Nadia can make something of this mess. I chose the wrong excellency in the past, it seems.”

A brief knock on the door, then the old woman enters carrying a tray with a teapot and cups. She’s followed by two younger maids carrying fresh sheets and pillows. She nods at me, and I tug Valerius up by the hand I’m still holding. Oddly passive, he follows me to the chair then collapses in it. The old woman tenderly dabs at his forehead with a cloth as the other two maids rapidly strip and remake the bed.

“I did as you asked, magician.”

Magician then, Valerius must have told her. “Everything?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” I pour a cup of tea and hold it to Valerius’s lips. “Sip this, it will help.” He wraps his hands around the cup, but I don’t entirely let go, afraid that he might start shaking again.

“Should I be worried about poison?”

The old woman flicks his ear. “Do as you’re told, Valeri. I’m not too old to hold your nose and make you drink it.”

Valerius rolls his eyes and drinks the cup down with a grimace. “That is vile! A syrupy sweet - Septima, what did you put in it?”

“You should have tasted it before the honey.”

“Your body has been compensating for the depressant effects of wine for ages and hasn’t caught on that it doesn’t need to. That’s why your heart is racing. This should help some. It’s mostly valerian root.” He fixes me with a dark glare, and I smirk back. “And your face right now is inspiring me to cut back on my own alcohol consumption, if that’s any consolation.”

“It isn’t.” He takes a glass of water the old woman offers him and drinks it slowly trying to clear the tea from his mouth. “How much of that foul stuff do I need to drink?”

“Let’s see what one cup does to you.”

Septima pats his shoulder and exits with her women. Valerius leans back in the chair. “Dear god, I didn’t think it would be _this_ bad.”

“Ever tried to stop drinking before?”

Another bitter smile on those elegant lips. “A couple of times. Never made it past the second morning. So, little witch, just how do you propose to save Devorak’s sorry ass?”

“I don’t know. I hoped you’d have some idea.”

“Tell me, just how does Nadia plan for this little trial to play out.”

“She intends to allow the other courtiers to state their cases. Then I’m supposed to somehow turn that around by - I don’t know what - magic?”

“I take it, then, that magic and card tricks won’t work.”

“Don’t play stupid, Consul.”

He waves a hand and takes another sip of the water in his hand. “Val. If you’ve seen me in this state, you can just call me Val.” The glass is shaking a bit less in his hand when he sets it down. “So, Vulgora and Vlastomil will say that they saw Devorak set the fire, or something equally dastardly, and Volta won’t be able to bring herself to contradict them. And god knows what Valdemar will say. What do you have?”

“That the fire was magical in nature, and Julian can’t use magic? That Lucio’s ghost said Julian didn’t do it? A friend of Asra’s who no one remembers for longer than a few moments said the same thing? None of that is especially convincing.”

Valerius taps a finger against his chin. “No. Not especially.”

“Especially not when a good portion of the city believes that he did it.”

“Hmm. Press Volta. She might break with the rest of them.” He shivers violently and wraps his shawl tight, closes his eyes and repeats the breathing pattern until the shaking passes. “What if I testified that I did not see the fire started?” He sighs. “That I regret jumping to the conclusion that Devorak was the culprit.”

“You would do that?”

His head turns to the side. “It would be yet another humbling experience, but I seem to be fated to such things this week. If Nadia will lift this house arrest, I’ll try to stand upright long enough.” 

“It would help.” I glance down at my hands then back up at his pale face. “Let me check your pulse again.”

He extends a hand to me, and I hold my fingers over his wrist, pleased to feel a steadier, lower beat, even if he's still trembling a touch. “I am feeling a little better, witch. Thank you. So what do I do, just drink that awful stuff at intervals?”

“You’ll want to step it down gradually. Septima has instructions.”

“I’ll be happy enough to see it go.”

“Another cup should let you sleep.”

He grimaces. “Before that . . . Would you read my cards again?”

“Why?”

“You said before that I still had free will. I wish to see if anything has changed.”

“Very well.” I slide the tea tray to the side of the table and pull my card deck from my pocket. “I’ll admit to being a little surprised.”

“Humor me, witch. I still feel like hell warmed over.”

“Fair.” I shuffle the cards several times and push the deck across for him to cut. He hesitates for a moment, then splits the deck, pushing the lower half back to me.

“The first two cards represent what you feel at the moment -”

“So, nauseous, dizzy, questioning my sanity, and generally like hell?

“Hopefully a little deeper than that, Val.” I turn the two cards over. “The Hermit and the Five of Cups. What do you see?” I spin the cards around so that the Hermit is reversed and the Five is upright to Val’s view.

Val’s finger still shakes as he holds it over the Five of Cups. “A mourner.” He laughs faintly. “Appropriate, don’t you think, mourning spilled cups.” Val glances at me expecting some sort of response to the joke. When that fails, he looks back at the card again. “Two cups still upright behind him. And this bridge? Is it a way out, or the way he ended up here?” His arms move over his arms, scratching at something unseen. “He’s stuck. I’m stuck.”

“And this one?” I gently push the Hermit toward him.

“He almost looks like he’s underwater. So . . . so terribly alone.” He looks back over his shoulder, eyes closing and dark brows pushing together tightly. “What then, little witch? If I can’t banish it as I have been?”

“Then there’s a bridge of some sort you have to cross.” I flipped over the third card. The Reversed Devil. Not so bad as it might seem at first. I wait for a moment, but no words come to me. A welcome absence after the past few days. I’m not sure I want to hear from any arcanum any time soon. Like the others, I turned it about to Valerius. 

“This one again?” 

“But reversed this time.”

“So what does that mean?” He touches his finger to the figure of the woman, the same that he had claimed to feel more affinity for the last time I read the cards for him. “That the chain is about to slip her neck?”

“Usually this card appears when someone is about to make some change that gives them more mastery over themselves. Escape something from their past.”

“So I should take it as a positive?”

“It’s self mastery, Val. You can’t just fall out of whatever chains you’re in. You have to choose. Or keep choosing. The card here in the center - it’s one for the future. What all this can transform into.” Still no words, but the card feels warm and positive beneath my fingers as I turn it over. “The Hierophant. Another old friend?” Val’s mouth falls open as I spin the card to him, and his head bows as he looks down at his hands, where he’s twisted them into his robe. “Does he still visit you, Val?”

“He . . . yes.”

“He hasn’t given up on you then, for what it’s worth.”

“So you can answer now? Whether these cards are persons?”

A shiver passes through me. Perhaps just a chill from the open windows. “Some of them, at least.” I point to the numerals on the Hierophant and the Five of Cups. “Same number. These cards speak to each other and you.” 

“Get over yourself, Valerius.” He coughs in his sleeve. “I would think, at least. The last three cards?”

“Also the future. Ways to move forward, lessons learned.” I flip over the next two cards: the Chariot upright and the Three of Pentacles, also upright. 

Val spins them around to face him on his own and taps the Chariot. “This one seems clear enough. Taking control of one’s fate. Not waiting for the chains to fall off.” He’s getting the hang of it, the ways in which the cards speak together. “But this one, not so clear. They seem to be building something.”

“As a group. Two hold the plans, a third has the skills to execute them.” 

“Hmm.” He leans back again and taps steepled fingers against his chin. Thought then, but ones he wants to keep to himself for the moment. “The last then. Still moving forward?”

I turn the card over. Another familiar face: the Knight of Pentacles, upright again. “Do you remember the first reading I did for you?” 

Val nods, his lips pressed into a tight line. “This one came up then as well, but in the past.”

“More than that. It represented you. You as you were before the mess that we all seem to have created for ourselves.”

He snorts dismissively. “All of us? What had you to do with it, little witch?”

“I don’t know yet.” I push back the hair that has fallen into my face. “I still don’t remember.”

“Remember?”

“It’s . . . something happened to me. Three years ago. It took my memories . . . whatever it was.”

“Some might consider that a blessing.”

“I think even they would consider it a curse after the fact.”

Val goes quiet for a moment. “I’m sorry for you then.” He dabs at his face with the sleeve of his shirt. “Your master, he’s never told you anything.”

“Precious little.”

“He always struck me as playing his own game. Not anyone else’s.” He leans back, spreading his arms out to either side along the back of the sofa. “But we were all willing enough to be pieces in it.”

“Perhaps there’s a chance to make some of that right.”

“A second birth, of sorts.” His laugh is bitter, some joke that it clear to him, but enigmatic to me. One hand lifts, fluttering through the air, and comes to rest on his face, rubbing at his temples. “So you and I have something in common, albeit my sins stay to weigh heavily on me.”

“Drink another cup, Val. Sleep. Perhaps they will weigh a little less tomorrow.” I lift the pot from the tray and refill the teacup his was drinking from. He grimaces as he sits back up, rubbing at the bridge of his nose, then leaning forward heavily, elbows on his knees.

“At least this tastes appropriately penitent.” He downs a good portion in a single gulp, then trades the cup for a glass of water. “Tell me something. What would you do if you loved someone who actually needed to die? What would you say to them as you refused to save, to help in any way?”

“What do you mean?”

“Or rather if someone you loved needed to stay dead because that would be better for everyone, but there's a chance they might somehow, and I don't know how, so don't ask, come back from the dead.”

He's talking about Lucio. But if he doesn't want to mention the name, I'm not inclined to press the matter. “The dead aren't supposed to rejoin us. Good, bad, should be, shouldn't be. The dead stay dead. That's just the order of things.”

He drinks another mouthful of tea followed by a quick drink of water, just as disgusted with the taste as before, and looks at me carefully. The lids lower over his pale eyes, just slightly, and just for a moment, as if he sees something that he has missed before. “Is it, little witch?”

“But still, I would have a difficult time letting go. It would hurt, like being torn in two, I think.”

“It does. Even though there's nothing that I can do to change the outcome in either direction.” His hands are still shaking when he sets aside the teacup. “Stay with me a bit? Perhaps you can help me figure out what's real and what isn't once the ghosts come calling again?”

“You need sleep.”

“So do you. Lie down if you like. Sleep if you can. I've no interest in throwing you out.” 

He watches, eyebrows lifted in surprise, as I pour a half cup of the tea for myself and drink it in a single gulp. Just as awful of a taste as I remember, even with all the honey Septima added.

“It's essentially the same recipe I use to try and knock myself out. When my mind starts running too fast, for too long.” Like now. I'm going on thirty-odd hours awake. 

“At least it's a poison you're willing to drink yourself.” He hugs his arms around himself and shivers, despite the warmth of the room. I wrap one of the throw blankets around his shoulders, pulling it tight. That usually makes me feel a bit better.

“The ghosts you spoke of?”

He only nods in response; his eyes have gone distant and watery.

“Lie down, Val. I'll stay with you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will be defending this version of Valerius against the canon version in Muriel's last update. To the death, if need be. *cracks knuckles* Because he is my flawed and tortured, quasi-Byzantine son, and I love him. Shout out to [Verdin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Verdin/pseuds/Verdin) for the core headcanons and Septima, in all of her protectiveness. :)
> 
> And next, on to the show trial of the century! 
> 
> PSA: For the love of all that is good and holy, if you drink like Val and want to stop, please seek professional help. Severe alcohol dependency is some nasty shit.


	5. My Hands Are Red from Sealing Your Red Lips

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from St Vincent, "Your Lips are Red"  
> Thanks to Mother of Cups for beta'ing again.

I wake the next morning to Nadia’s hand on my shoulder, gently shaking me. The sun isn’t even up yet. I’m wrapped in a throw blanket and curled up on Valerius’s bed, arm folded under my head. Val is still passed out, one arm flung over his eyes as if even the flickering light of the night lamp was too much for him.

“Dema, dear.” Her voice is soft. “Time to wake up.”

I try to ignore her and snuggle back down in the blankets. It can’t have been more than a few hours, and I need to sleep so much. “You look like a little child, curled up like this.” She shakes my shoulder again, a touch harder this time. “Come on, sweet girl. Asra’s here and Portia.”

This time I roll over and rub my eyes. On the other side of me, Valerius mutters something grumpily and flips onto his stomach, pulling the blanket over his head. Nadia’s hand close around my shoulders and tugs me upright and off the bed. She’s already dressed in deep violet robes, hair pulled up and styled around her head, adding another few inches to her height. She keeps my hand in hers, escorting me out of the room. Asra waits in the hallway, just beyond the door. He takes me from her and rubs my back. “You slept some? That’s good.”

“Could sleep more.” I press my head against his chest, yawning.

“I know, dear heart. Come on.” He follows Nadia through the hall. “There’s coffee.”

Portia has already set up shop in what appears to be a guest room, just one that hasn’t been used in some time. The bed is still draped in a white sheet and the sofa has only just been uncovered. But there is coffee set out on the table with a pitcher of cream and some of those almond pastries from the palace that I liked so much. She presses a cup of coffee into my hands as Nadia excuses herself.

Portia and Asra sip their own tea and let me finish two cups of coffee before attempting to speak to me. Asra rests a hand on my knee. “Nadia plans for the trial to begin two hours past sunrise.” Sunlight is only now beginning to peek through the curtains. They could have let me sleep a little while longer.

Portia dabs at my face with a cloth soaked in ice-cold water. I take it from her and wipe the sleep out of my eyes. The cold feels welcome if I’m honest; although, I’d rather still be in bed. “Do you want a proper bath?” Portia asks. “I’m sure that’s an option.”

“That wouldn’t be bad.” I’m still in the clothes that I wore down into the tunnels and Valdemar’s den of horrors. Washing my face probably isn’t going to help much. 

“I’ll see what I can do.” She presses a friendly kiss to my cheek and hurries off. 

Asra pours more coffee for me. “Nadi told me what she has planned.”

“I don’t know if -” I start to pick up a pastry, then put it back on the plate. Delicious as they are, I don’t feel hungry. “I don’t know if I can do it.” I hunch forward, elbows on my knees and chin in my hands.

Asra presses his head against my shoulder, then wraps his arms around me and pulls me against him. “You’re good with words. You’ll do fine. I’m sure of it.”

“I’m not. Asra, she wants me to convince a city that’s largely already decided one way or the other. How am I supposed to -”

“I know, dear heart. It’s not fair.”

The door squeaks a bit as Portia nudges it open with her hip, carrying a stack of fresh towels. “Come on, guys. Two doors down.”

Once I would have considered the guest bath Portia leads us to as the epitome of luxury, but I’ve been spoiled by the palace. It’s still sumptuous. Marble tile covers the floor and a generously sized clawfoot tub takes up one corner. Benches and a vanity for dressing line the walls. Asra paws through a cabinet that is hospitably supplied with various soaps and oils for guests as Portia fusses with the temperature of the water, and I peel off my clothes. I sink into the tub with a sigh and lean forward to splash water over my face.

“No vetiver, found some sandalwood though.” Asra’s hand runs over my shoulder.

“Mmm, that’ll do.”

“I’m going to go fetch your outfit back here. Bring you more coffee?”

“Please and thank you, Portia.”

Asra starts working his fingers through my hair. I tilt my head forward, letting him massage my scalp, half afraid that I’m going to fall right back asleep. “You haven’t spoken to Julian have you?”

“Not since yesterday morning.”

“I probably should have gone last night.” I pull my knees up to my chest and lean my forehead against them. “Tried to talk him out of it again.”

“I’m afraid things are a bit beyond his control at this point.”

“He could at least not claim that he’s guilty.”

Asra’s hands drift to my shoulders. “Do you think you would have changed his mind?” 

I push my hair back from my eyes and tilt my head up before soap can get in my eyes. It would be a good excuse to cry though. “Valerius is willing to testify that he erred in arresting Julian in the first place. That he doesn’t think Julian is the culprit.”

“That’s something. How’d you do that?”

“He’s not quite as much of an ass as he appears to be.”

“Hmph.” Asra slides one hand down along my spine, and I lean forward dunking my head under the water to rinse away the soap. I stay under the water a bit longer than absolutely necessary, dragging my fingers through my hair several times. Asra’s hands wrap around my shoulders and pull me back up from the water, smoothing my hair back from my face. He kisses my shoulder.

“I'm afraid, Asra. Of fucking this all up.”

His arms wrap around my shoulders. “It's already pretty fucked up, love.”

“Part of me just wants to run away.”

“I understand. Truly.” He presses his cheek to mine. “But that's not you.”

“I know.” I lean my head back against him. “It isn’t.” 

“That’s a good quality.” He squeezes his arms around me and briefly nuzzles my neck. “Ready to get out?”

I sit up, running my hands down my legs. “Hand me that soap first, please.”

I wash quickly and dunk myself under the water again, hoping that it will rinse away any residue of the palace dungeons that lingers on me. Doubt it will work, but worth a try. Asra wraps me up in a towel and bunches my hair into another, squeezing it dry. He’s combing his fingers through it when Portia returns with a stack of clothes, all deep jewel-tone colors that were probably picked to be visible within the stadium. She’s efficient as ever, making short work of the various ties and sashes and buttons with which I wouldn’t even know how to begin. 

She sits back while Asra does my hair, braiding in brilliant blue ribbons that match the trim on the green split skirt and the violet jacket that Portia had laced and buttoned and generally tied me into. “I feel like a puppet.”

“Wait ‘til I get your makeup done, but you need to be visible.”

“I know. I know.”

Portia pats my hand. “I’m sorry that Nadia roped you into this, but I’m grateful that you’re going to try. I know that you’ll do well.”

Asra finishes my hair, and Portia starts outlining my eyes in black. “Where is Nadia anyway?”

“She went to meet her sisters at the Coliseum.” Asra idly rubs different shades of eye shadow on the inside of his wrist. “Maybe one of them has concocted a better plan?”

“Or an invasion.” I wouldn’t complain about the city being absorbed into Prakra's empire if it got rid of the courtiers and saved Julian's neck. It might be better for everyone, truth be told.

“I doubt that's what Milady has planned.”

“You haven't come up with any backup ideas have you, Portia?”

“Well.” She presses her lips together. “I'm sure Mazelinka can get Ilya out of the city. He just has to cooperate. We could clobber him over the head, I suppose, but he's kinda hard to carry. All elbows and knees.”

Asra laughs. It is an amusing mental image: Portia hauling Julian by his feet or something similarly absurd. “I volunteer to help.”

“Me too.” Asra’s answer is garbled by a continuing giggle. I’m starting to doubt that he’s slept any more than I have.

There’s a rap at the door. Asra goes to answer it while Portia tilts my chin from side to side, checking her work. She rubs her thumbs along my cheekbones, softening whatever she did to them, then smiles at me.

Septima waits beside Asra, hands folded elegantly in front of her. “I wanted to double check the recipe you gave me last night. And thank you for it, as well.” She holds out the piece of paper for me to look over. “Valeri tells me he agreed to testify at this trial today.”

“He did offer.” I’m half surprised that he remembered that conversation in any coherent fashion. And grateful that his intention remains; I don’t have much else with which to work. Septima had been rewritten my directions in a tight, formal script on a heavy notecard. “Yes. Just keep reducing the poppy by a quarter each time you make it. Worst should be past tomorrow, but he’ll probably still be a bit of a grumpy bitch - shit -” I clap my hands over my mouth, expecting a good scolding from the dignified woman. Behind me, I can hear Asra stifling another laugh.

Septima simply raises her eyebrows and nods. "I assure you, I am the one person in the world with whom Valeri doesn't try bitchiness.” She folds the paper back up and tucks it into her belt. “There’s a carriage waiting outside for you. I’ll see that Valeri makes it. Thank you, magician, I appreciate your assistance last night.”

“Okay, last bit.” Portia pulls out a pair of low cut boots with a heel that is at least three inches if not a bit over.

“How am I supposed to walk in these?” I complain even as I slide my foot into one. The extra height will help with being visible to the crowd, but I never wear heels.

Asra kneels down beside me. “Think I can help with that.” He sketches a simple sigil on each shoe, light flaring briefly then disappearing. “For balance.”

I get to my feet slowly. Even with Asra’s spell, I feel like a newborn calf trying out this new walking thing. Except, a calf has instinct to take over, and I lack that. Portia fails to suppress a giggle, and I glare at her. I’ve never seen her in heels either. Asra slips a second charm around my neck. “It’ll help your voice carry. Tap it twice to activate the spell.” He offers me his arm, smiling reassuringly. “Ready to go, dear heart?”

“Ready as I’m going to be.” 

* * *

At the Coliseum, Nadia and her sisters are already gathered in a private box. Nadia, Nasmira, and Nahara are sitting in chairs close to the front. Navra sits further to the back, knitting an elaborate scarf, and I have to force myself to not laugh at the image of a princess in silk and jewels engaged in such a pedestrian task. Portia goes to a side table, pouring a cup of coffee for me without asking because she knows.

Nadia pats the empty seat next to her and beckons me over. I sit down with a bit of relief; I’m still not sure that I trust the charm Asra put on my shoes. She squeezes my hand. “You look impressive, dear. Was Valerius any help?”

“He offered to testify that he regrets arresting Julian out of hand, and now doesn’t think that he’s guilty.”

She nods solemnly. “That may help.”

Portia offers me the cup of coffee that she fixed. I take it from her, gulping it down nervously. I also want a pipe - or at least a cigarette - but I doubt that either will be forthcoming. Asra squeezes my shoulders from behind.

Nadia peers out of the box and looks around the stadium. “Well, I suppose we should get started.” She stands and approaches the rail of the box. Two of the guards push back the curtains from the box and begin beating the butts of their spears against the floor. The rhythm is taken up by the guards on the ground. I can feel the beats crawling over my skin, and my fingers start to twitch in time. Slowly, the crowd quiets, unlike my fingers which continue, quickening their movements against my thigh until Asra grabs and steadies my hand. Nadia’s back straightens, raising her shoulders a touch higher as she takes a deep breath.

“Vesuvia.” Her voice projects easily and the remaining chatter in the crowd ceases. “Vesuvia. Three years ago my husband, your count, was murdered in his bed. Dr. Julian Devorak, well known to many of you, was accused of the murder but escaped before he could receive a trial. Today we will right that wrong.”

Below a raised dais has been constructed on the sand, with an awning and podium for the judge, and a second box. The courtiers are gathered to the side, shielded by a second awning. While Nadia speaks, two guards lead Julian out. He wears his overcoat like a cape, and his hands are manacled in front of him. He doesn’t struggle as the guard pushes him into the box, choosing instead to hunch his shoulders sullenly. Part of his act? An unrepentant murderer?

“Dr. Devorak has been apprehended, and today we will settle the question of his guilt or innocence. I say we because you, the people of Vesuvia, will judge the facts of the case.” There’s a moment of hushed silence and then the mob cheers. Clearly, they like this new and participatory spectacle. Nadia lifts one hand. “Praetor.”

At her word, Vlastomil traipses out onto the sand and climbs to the judge’s podium. He bangs his gavel and shouts for order, rather unnecessarily, as the crowd now waits in anticipation of the show they’ve been promised. From the side of the box, Portia gestures to me to descend the steps and out onto the sands. She walks down with me. Asra follows, holding onto my hand for as long as he can. 

Unlike Nadia’s, the Praetor’s reedy voice doesn’t carry well, and he has to shout to be heard. When I reach the base of the stairs, he finishes with whatever spiel he had been on. I can see a few heads in the crowd turning toward me. The rich colors that Nadia dressed me make me stand out, and the heeled boots do help with my height, but Vlastomil ignores me, either deliberately or - more likely - intentionally.

“Now -” He holds the gavel high. “Let us present _our_ case.”

There’s a shout from the crowd. A strong voice that is instantly recognizable to me, and to at least some portion of the city center as Artemis. “Foul! _Your case?_ The trial’s not fair if the judge is also the prosecutor!” Another voice takes up the cry, rougher but even more commanding, and when I look over, I can see a wooden spoon waving from the stands, working up a crowd that clearly wants the drama of a plot twist. Before long, the entire crowd is chanting aloud, demanding a fair judge, while the Praetor beats his gavel impotently. Beside me, Portia smirks and rubs her hands together gleefully.

The guards beat their spears on the ground again, and Nadia’s voice rings out from above. “Peace, Vesuvia, peace! You have been heard. Will you accept my sister, Princess Nahara of Prakra to preside?”

There’s a roar of affirmation. Behind me, Portia is unable to hold back her own cheer.

A moment later, Nahara strides past me and out onto the sand, gold jewelry gleaming in the sunlight. She pauses at the foot of the podium and stares up at the Praetor. Another scene to be added to the paneling in the temple she deserves. There’s a long moment, before he steps down, leaving the gavel behind him. Nahara ascends with measured paces. She ignores the gavel, simply calling out with a deep voice that projects easily about the stadium.

“Order, Vesuvia.” She inclines her head in satisfaction as the crowd quiets again. “The members of the court will present their case. And -” She gestures to me, indicating a table and a bench that have remained empty. I walk up to her hesitantly, watching Julian out of the corner of my eye. He shakes his head slowly, brows lowered and lips slightly parted. He looks as if he might protest, then his face turns away from me as if he’ll be able to convince himself that I’m not present if he can’t see me. “Dr. Devorak’s defense will be presented by Dema Strayhorn, who has also investigated the matter at the Countess’s invitation. Now, Praetor, if you wish to present your case, you may proceed.”

Vlastomil shakes out his robes, seemingly lost without a gavel to occupy his squirming hands. “Yes, well, after that interruption. The members of the Court will present evidence of Dr. Devorak’s low nature and the incontrovertible fact of his guilt and then we will be finished with this nastiness. We call Quaestor Valdemar as a witness.”

The crowd is painfully silent as the Quaestor approaches the stand. Julian hunches deeper into his coat, shivering despite the heat. Once again, all of Valdemar’s movements seem wrong. Too still. Motion forward but without the natural movements of limbs or contractions of muscles. On the stand, they fold their hands placidly in front of them, ignoring Nahara.

“Quaestor. Will you tell the populace what you know of the accused?”

“The accused?”

“Dr. Devorak.”

“Oh, you mean Dr. Zero-Six-Nine. It was easier to just assign them numbers during that time. So many little ducklings coming and going.” Their voice doesn’t project, so much as it creeps through the stadium. 

“And what of this, Zero-Six-Nine?”

“A detached fellow. The only part of research he didn’t refuse to participate in was once the subjects, that is, the patients were already dead. He was frightfully meticulous at documenting the minutiae of the bodies though. Always drawing and writing notes in those little books of his.”

“And the living?”

“You must understand, there was little to be done for the subjects once they were brought to us, but Zero-Six-Nine had no interest in them while still living.”

“What do you know of the night of the Count’s murder?”

“There was all the usual frivolity of the Masquerade. Then the Count’s bed caught flame with him in it. A most fascinating event to be sure.”

“And Devorak?”

“I observed him running from the bedroom as did the rest of the court. Are we finished here? I have much to attend to in my lab.”

Nahara raises a hand to stay them. “Does the defense have questions?” She looks at me, and I stand, trying to keep my legs from shaking. I know where to go with this. At least, I think I do. I hope I do. I gather my breath, tap the charm around my neck twice and hope that my voice will project far enough with the help of the magic. “Quaestor, did you see Dr. Devorak set the fire?”

“Who else could it have been? All others present were devoted members of the court.”

I let the evasion go. The non-answer accomplishes what I want so far, and I expect that they will lie if pushed too far. I almost _want_ them to lie in response to my next question so that I can have Nadia and Valerius testify to the contrary. That would be a nice dramatic turn for the audience. “And you have examined the Count’s rooms. Did the entire room burn?”

“No.” Their eyes narrow at me in irritation. Perhaps they can’t lie? At least, not directly. That isn’t uncommon among fey creatures, and it certainly would be convenient. If nothing else, it’s an opening - if I can somehow phrase my questions to avoid half-truths and omissions.

“In fact, it was just the bed that burned,” I continue. “And not even all of that - only the part Count Lucio was lying on. Is that the case?”

“Yes.” 

“You’re a scientist, Quaestor. Can you think of any natural reason for the fire to be so confined?”

“I can not. However, regardless of the fire’s scope, Zero-Six-Nine was present when it was set. Stop wasting my time with this pointless questioning.”

“Quaestor.” Nahara’s voice is low, almost a growl. “You will answer the questions put to you.”

“Your research, during the plague. Tell us of its nature.” Perhaps Nadia and Valerius can’t remove the Quaestor via court politics alone. But the politics of the city are a rather stronger force. If Nadia intends to use the will for one end, perhaps it can be put to others, like undermining Valdemar as a witness anyone should trust. 

“It was simple. We observed the course of the plague in its victims.”

“Did you limit your observations to the external symptoms? Or did you endeavor to see the internal as well?” There’s a gasp and groan from behind me as I speak. Julian, I think. It wouldn’t be something that he wants to recall. 

“The internal. All who pleased could observe the external.”

“While they were still alive?”

“Princess,” Vlastomil interrupts. “These nasty, rude questions have nothing to do with Devorak’s guilt?”

Nahara’s golden eyes turn to me. “Dema?”

“The Quaestor’s prior testimony spoke to Dr. Devorak’s character. I think the details of their research are pertinent.”

“Very well. Quaestor, your answer.”

There’s a long pause. The Quaestor closes their eyes, perhaps trying to think of a half-truth. “As stated before, we were researching the progress of the disease. It was necessary for some of the subjects to still be living.”

The answer complicates why Julian might have refused to work with the living in Valdemar’s research. Not callousness, but a refusal to violate the principle of doing no harm. And other questions, perhaps, in the mind of a city that might no longer welcome the presence of a certain courtier. 

I nod to Nahara. “I’m finished, your Highness.”

“Very well. Quaestor, you are excused for the time being.” The stern, downward tilt of her eyebrows suggests that the matter of the Quaestor’s research will be raised again at some later time and place.

A moment after I sit back down at my table, Portia is at my side, setting a glass down beside me, and for a moment I hope that it’s gin. Or maybe vodka, always preferred that to gin if I can’t have whiskey. Alas, when I take a sip, it’s simply water. Portia leans over and whispers in my ear. “Well done.” A second later, she’s a few feet away, offering a second glass to her brother. Julian pushes her hand away without looking at her. 

“Who is your next witness, Praetor?”

“Procurator Volta.”

Volta approaches the stand, wringing her hands and stumbling at one point before climbing the stairs. Vlastomil worms his way closer to her, leaning forward over her tiny frame. “Volta, tell the people what you saw three years ago at the Masquerade.”

She looks around, confused, then her good eye settles on Nahara. She smiles slightly, pleading for something. “Go ahead, Procurator.”

“Oh, oh, it was a night, but not so much of a night as -”

“Louder, please.”

“It wasn’t as big as the Masquerades before. Not so much to eat, but still much to eat, and fewer people, Volta remembers, but still a Masquerade -”

“Volta, please, about the Count’s death.” 

“Oh, it was horrible, so awful, the fire and the smoke! And the barking dogs!” Her voice rises in pitch along with volume. “Volta hopes never to see such a thing again. I did not want such a thing.”

“What about Devorak? Did you see him leave the Count’s room?”

“Leave the room. Yes, yes, Volta saw him. Saw him run out. He fell down, coughing so awfully. All of it. Awful.”

“So Devorak was present in the Count’s room when the fire was set?”

“He . . . he came from the Count’s room when it was burning.”

Vlastomil finishes and sits back down. I take another drink of water and get back up. Volta is the weak link among the courtiers. She’s my best bet at getting one to break.

“Procurator, did you see Dr. Devorak set the fire?” 

She blinks at me and wrings her hands, looking off to the side somewhere. I follow her gaze to Vulgora’s angry face. The other courtier is making threatening hand gestures, pinching their gauntleted fingers together, pointing them to their eyes, and then back to Volta, who is now practically shaking.

“Volta,” I let my voice soften. I might even feel genuinely bad for her. “Look at me, not them. Did you see Dr. Devorak set the fire?”

“Set the fire. No, Volta did not see anyone set the fire.”

I nod at her and try to smile reassuringly. “Louder, for the crowd. Did you see the fire set?”

“No, no, Volta did not see the fire set. Just the fire. The awful, awful fire.”

“So you can’t be sure that Dr. Devorak set it?”

“No, no, Volta can’t be sure!” She hides her face in her hands, then looks up at me with pleading eyes, speaking quietly. “Oh, I am so hungry, magician.”

Discussion of murder and fire to hunger. Such a strange little woman. “Thank you, Volta.” I nod to Nahara and return to my table. Julian has his elbows on the box before him, tapping his fingertips together, and looking dark. He continues to refuse to meet my gaze, and my heart drops a little. 

Volta is excused, stumbling back across the sands, avoiding Vulgora as she goes. The crowd starts to murmur, and Nahara’s gaze shifts to a point behind me. 

“Princess Nahara, I wish to speak.”

When I look over my shoulder, Valerius is standing beneath Nadia’s box. Septima has a gentle hand under his arm, subtly supporting him. His robes and hair are both immaculate, even if his face remains drawn. He steps forward slowly, leaving the elderly woman behind him and entering into this drama.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ooooooo…. A cliff hanger! Fear not, dear readers who know of my inconsistent updating, for the next chapter is fully drafted.
> 
> As a side note, I've had a really shitty week. So if you're on the fence about commenting, just know it'd be a particularly welcome pick me up at this time.


	6. Anyway I Told the Truth, but I’m ‘fraid I Told a Lie

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Nick Cave, "The Mercy Seat"
> 
> Thanks to [Mother of Cups](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MotherOfCups/pseuds/MotherOfCups) for beta'ing. :)

“Consul Valerius?” Nadia appears at the railing of her box. Her eyebrows are raised slightly, and she feigns surprise with the inflection of her words. We are weaving such a drama for the crowd. “I had understood that you were unwell.”

“Not so unwell as to neglect this most important matter.” His voice carries as easily and as evenly as Nadia’s. Many, many elocution lessons, I suspect. One benefit of a wealthy childhood that I wouldn’t mind myself. Certainly not right now. Asra’s charm might make me louder, but it does little to even out the quivers that my nerves continue to inject into my speech.

“Princess -” Vlastomil begins to protest. “I have not called Consul Valerius as a witness.”

“He wishes to speak, Praetor. I see no rule stating he may not.” One side of Nahara's mouth raises into an expression of disgust bordering on a sneer. Fair. She doesn't seem like one for theatrics, and this is either a farce or a tragedy and most likely both. “No rules at all, to be honest. Consul, approach if you wish.”

Val crosses the sands to the arena with scrupulously measured paces. I see his hand trembling as he grasps the railing of the stairs, but it is so slight a tremor that perhaps no one else will notice. He inclines his head just slightly to me and clears his throat. “Procurator Volta is correct. None of us actually saw Devorak start the fire that night. Not I, nor any of the other members of the court. And as has been stated, despite reducing Lu -” He stops short for a moment, pressing his hand to his chest before continuing. “Reducing the Count’s body to ash, only the bed was burnt, and not all of that. Think, is that not unnatural? Only magic could explain such an intense, yet so limited, conflagration.”

“Consul, need I remind you that you had Dr. Devorak arrested yourself.”

“I am aware, Praetor. And it is a choice I now regret.”

Julian laughs aloud at the statement, burying his head in his arms, then looking back up at the Consul. He strips the gloves from his hands and holds up the left to show off the brand, wiggling his fingers in the air. Valerius rolls his eyes, then pointedly ignores Julian's antics.

“There was much confusion that night, and . . .” Valerius’ voice trails off again. This time he presses his hand to his side. Nahara gestures, and Portia runs forward with a glass of water. Valerius accepts it and takes a sip that turns into a gulp. “Emotions were running high. Devorak was a convenient person to blame, but I acted with undue haste. Haste that was unbecoming to my station. Had I paused, I would have realized that Devorak is not . . . He is not a man capable of such a thing. Not killing. And certainly not to kill so cruelly." He takes a second drink of water, then sets the glass aside. "Do not misunderstand. There is no love lost between us. Jealousy and distaste on my part and, I can only assume, something similar on his. But no, he is no murderer.”

“And how do you explain his confession?”

“As I said before. There was much confusion that night. And the doctor has always been prone to fits of melodrama. Perhaps he thought to assuage his constant, irrational guilt? He had an unhealthy preoccupation with having somehow failed to save everyone. But this is only speculation on my part, Praetor.” Val’s eyes are steely as he stares back at Vlastomil, and the Praetor wiggles backward. 

“Dema?” Nahara looks at me.

A layer of sweat shines on Valerius’ face. I incline my head to him, hopefully enough to indicate that I realize what this is costing him, without giving away anything else. “To reiterate what you said earlier. The fire in the Count’s chambers, you described it as unnatural.”

“Yes. It was no normal fire.”

“And you can only attribute it to magic?”

“That is the only possible explanation.”

“To the best of your knowledge, does Dr. Devorak use magic?”

“He does not. In fact, I can attest to having heard more than one diatribe from him about just how much he dislikes magic.” 

“Thank you, Consul.”

Valerius' slow descent could be attributed to haughtiness, but I suspect he's fighting to maintain a dignified posture despite the unsteadying lack of his usual wine and recounting what remains a painful memory. And why wouldn't it be? Little I know helps me to understand why he would have loved Lucio, but he clearly did.

Vlastomil waits until Valerius has disappeared from view then clears his throat. "Your Highness, the next witness I wish to call is Dr. Devorak himself."

Nahara lifts one eyebrow. "It isn't customary to force the accused to testify."

I'm not sure what custom she refers to, as Vesuvia seems to have no precedent for trials by any means other than combat, at least not in living memory. But Julian quickly makes the point moot.

"Princess, I don't need to be forced. I wish to speak to the crowd."

Nahara leans back in her chair and crosses her arms over her chest. I think she might have given up on maintaining any kind of propriety. "Very well."

The guards stand down, allowing Julian to leave his temporary cell and join Nahara on the platform. He clears his throat, steeples his hands in front of him, and looks at Vlastomil. Expectantly, if I’m being generous, eagerly because I don’t feel like being generous at the moment. The Praetor rubs his hands together then smooths his robes.

“Now, Dr. Devorak, would you explain to the city the nasty, nasty business of how you murdered our beloved Count Lucio.”

“Well, that’s easy, Praetor.” Julian’s voice carries easily through the arena. “I looked around, I saw that the Count was bleeding the city dry. As his personal, trusted physician, I had the opportunity to end him. And so I did. I only wish that I had done it earlier.”

“And so you took advantage of the trust that the Count had placed in you?”

“What can I say? I did. A weak man, already dying. I simply sped things up a bit, so to speak. You could even call it a courtesy if you want.” He’s rehearsed this with himself in that cell. I can tell, there are none of his use pauses and circumlocutions, just a cold and simple story.

“And so you admit your guilt.”

“Just so. I’m terribly, frightfully guilty.” The damn fool enunciates each syllable and gestures dramatically. 

“There then. This horrible, nasty man is guilty of the Count’s murder. And of wasting all our time here. What else is there to say?”

Nahara’s composure breaks for a moment, and she rolls her eyes as Vlastomil as he sits down. “Dema, do you have any questions for the witness?”

I have quite a few questions for the witness, but the majority aren’t for this time and place. There are a handful of curses to go with them. I finish off my glass of water and get up from the table, trying to collect my nerves as I approach Julian. His stony facade drops into nervousness for a moment, then he fixes his expression with an actor’s ease.

“Dr. Devorak, no one knew where you were for three years. Why return now? Why hang for a crime that - if you even committed it - you seem to believe was justified?”

He pauses. I can’t imagine that he didn’t expect that question, not given that I’ve asked it before. But perhaps he didn’t expect it to be repeated here. “Maybe my conscience got the better of me?”

“Come now. Do you really expect us to believe that?”

“So you want the truth? About why I turned myself in?” He leans forward, meeting my eyes for the first time today. “Here’s the truth of it. I fell in love with someone. And I’d do anything to keep them from being hurt again. Anything at all. Including being hanged, if that is what it’s going to take.”

I squeeze my eyes shut, torn between competing desires to scream at him and to just dissolve into tears. Either response would make more sense than keeping up this charade. Or would play right into the drama. Maybe coming apart into an inconsolable fit would win us both sympathy as hopeless romantics. Who knows? It's all so fucking absurd at this point. When I open my eyes again, Julian is sitting back, face turned to steel again. “Tell me how you did it then, Dr. Devorak. How did you murder the count?” 

“How did I do it?” Julian picks at his fingernails, either to look callous or to avoid meeting my eyes. “I just looked around the city. People continued to die, and the doctors pulled to the palace to do _research._ No plan except to quarantine as many of the sick as can be found and then burn the bodies. And what - the city starves and he throws a party for himself? Can anyone believe that Vesuvia was better off with Lucio in power?”

“That isn’t what I meant, Julian. How did you start the fire?”

Perhaps it’s because I used his personal name, or perhaps he didn’t think through a scenario in which there would be an actual trial, or even the facsimile of one, but he turns his face to me, lips open slightly in dismay. “I - I can’t tell you that.”

I stare into his eyes, silently watching the struggle in them. “You don't know how because you didn't do it.”

He’s quiet for a long, long moment, then he whispers something for me alone. _“I’m sorry.”_ Clearing his throat, he turns back to the crowd and projects his voice again. “A magician never reveals his secrets.” 

There’s raucous laughter from the stands. Magician indeed. I make a tiny gesture, and Julian stifles a yelp, then rubs his ear, where I flicked it from a distance.

“But Dr. Devorak, it’s well known that you don’t . . . that you, in fact, can’t use magic.” I look at the crowd myself. “Can I find a single disinterested person here who will swear an oath that they’ve seen Dr. Julian Devorak use magic?”

Immediately I regret my poorly chosen question. What if someone is willing to lie under oath that they'd seen Julian use magic? There'd be no way to disprove them. And it wouldn't shock me if someone wants to throw another wrench into the drama. Or even worse - what if someone had seen Julian using his cursed mark. It wasn't his own magic, but it was magic. 

When no one responds. I exhale in relief. I haven't quite fucked this up beyond repair. Despite my best efforts.

“So then. Let me summarize what you are asked to believe, Vesuvia. Not only have no witnesses attested to seeing Dr. Devorak set the fire, but the fire itself was magical in nature. It did not destroy the palace. It did not destroy the Count’s rooms. It did not even consume the entirety of the bed he died in. And yet, somehow, you are supposed to condemn a man who is not only not known to use magic, but in fact, known to actively dislike it. Is that a claim you can honestly affirm?”

More silence. I nod to Nahara and return to my table and chair, trying not to just collapse. Maybe it will be enough. Enough to raise doubts in the crowd, at least in those without a pre-existing opinion and some concern for the truth. 

Vlastomil stands back up and clears his throat. “I wish to call one additional witness, Princess.” 

“I thought you had finished your case, Praetor.”  
“Oh, no, Princess, there’s one last aspect of this nasty business to be established.”

Nahara rubs the bridge of her nose the same way that Nadia does when a headache is beginning. “Very well. Call them.”

“Pontifex Vulgora.”

Vulgora enters the arena with a waddling jog and raises their gauntleted fist to the crowd. There are more than a few cheers from the crowd, and I feel my throat begin to tighten. At least some people must remember the Pontifex from the gladiatorial days on the Coliseum. And fondly, it seems.

“Pontifex, can you confirm that Dr. Devorak was seen fleeing from the Count’s burning bedchamber.”

“I can. I was there. You, me, the Procurator, the Quaestor. Even the Consul. We all saw him. Running out of the smoke, hair and eyes wild, like some sort of mad man.”

“The type of man who might have just committed an unjustifiable murder?”

“The exact type. And how could he justify it? Need I remind the crowds of the glory days of Lucio’s rule. The order of the city. When no one dared thieve or they’d end up here on these sands. And the glory then! None of these tiring, pathetic debates. Just punishment meted out. Dealt for all to see and revel in!” There’s another cheer from the crowd, and I only just manage to not bury my face in hands that were already moving up before I caught them. 

“And what do we have now? A city where you have to lock up your goods? Pray that trade returns so that you can feed your families? Where you toil all year instead of enjoying the Count’s hospitality? I miss those days. Hanging is too good for him. He should suffer as our beloved Count did! Burn him, I say! For all to see so that all can have a part in this vengeance. Just as we used to enjoy!”

Even Julian goes a little paler at that declaration and the cheer that accompanies it. 

“And Pontifex, would you say that Dr. Devorak’s guilt was clear? That it was not a confused night as the good Consul recalls.”

“It was clear to any _sober_ person present! We have the doctor’s confession. In the good old days, he would already have met justice in this very arena at the hands of the Scourge!”

Nahara bangs her gavel down and stands, muscular arms folded in front of her. “Enough. We are here solely to determine the doctor’s guilt or innocence. Not to discuss this edifice’s past uses and misuses. Praetor, have you finished.”

“I have, your highness.”

“Very well. Dema, do you have any questions for this … this witness?”

I shake my head, biting my lip to keep from crying. This . . . this wasn’t a scenario that I had thought of, even if I shouldn’t be surprised. And my mind whirls and twirls, but I can't think of any way to challenge an argument based on the mob's lust for sport with no concern for truth or logic. Pathos is difficult rhetoric to counter. 

“Then, we shall pause for five minutes, then the crowd will deliver their verdict.” Nahara strides off the dais, looking decidedly disgusted. I force myself to wait for a moment, then follow her back to the cool darkness of Nadia’s box. At the top of the stairs, Nahara is already venting the opinions that she kept in check while in public.

“That was a disas - Nadia, how did you think this was a good idea?”

“I . . . that did not go as I had hoped it might.”

Asra grabs me at the top of the stairs, hugging me close and dragging me over to a chair as he tries to reassure me. “You did fine, dear heart, you did so well.” I let him cuddle me as the argument between the Satrinava sisters continues. 

“He’s right, little witch. You did well.” 

I lift my head enough to see Valerius, wrapped tightly in a cloak and half curled into a chair. His skin looks clammy, and he’s shaking a bit again. “Under other circumstances, I might offer you a drink, but well -” He smiles ruefully at me. 

On the other side of Asra, Portia fidgets with her sash. “It could still turn out okay, right?” She looks around at Val’s melancholy expression and the Satrinavas now hushed conference, then leans forward with a groan, burying her face in her hands.

Finally, Nahara throws both of her hands up in the air and walks back down the stairs, returning to preside over whatever was about to occur. Nadia beckons for me to join her at the front of the box. I get up from my chair, but hang back a bit, trying to remain hidden by the curtains. Asra follows, standing behind me with one hand on my waist.

Below us, Nahara bangs her gavel once and the crowd silences almost immediately. “Vesuvia. You’ve heard the evidence for and against Dr. Devorak. You will now acclaim him guilty or innocent in the murder of Count Lucio. Do not take this duty lightly. It is not an entertainment before you, but a man’s life.” She looks around the arena, giving her words time to hopefully sink into those assembled. “Those of you who believe Dr. Devorak innocent, let yourselves be heard.”

The responding cheer is loud. But not, I fear, loud enough. Nadia’s lips press into a tight line. Nahara lifts her arm, quieting the crowd again. “And now those of you who believe him guilty.”

Below, I think I can see Vulgora raising their fist, in the air, rallying their base among the mob. This second group howls much louder than the first, leaving Nahara and Nadia no room to step in and cast a deciding vote. As the guards begin beating their spears against the ground again, I feel my knees start to go weak beneath me. I can barely hear Nahara’s word through the drone picking up in my ears. 

“Then you’ve spoken, Vesuvia, and proclaimed this man guilty.” She stands and makes a slow, pointed gesture - sharply drawing each hand along the opposite forearm as if to knock the entire sordid mess from her body.

The crowd explodes with cheers and boos both. I stagger further back behind the curtains in the back of the Countess's box. The ringing in my ears grows, drowning out the roars of the assembled crowd. I reach for the wall to steady myself against, but not quickly enough to stop my knees from giving out beneath me. For a second I’m floating again, suspended in the water of the canal, blood being sucked from my side, waiting for a hand to grab mine.

“Dema!” Asra seems alarmed about something. His voice seems far away. Then his arms are crushing me, propping me upright against his chest.

Someone with an imperious voice calls for water. Valerius? What good will water do? I'm drowning.

***

I come around warm and dry in a carriage rather than cold and soaked on cobblestones. My head rests Asra's lap. Concern is written on all of his features. Across from me, Nadia stares out the window looking pensive. Nasmira is next to her, one comforting hand in her sister's shoulder. I sit up with a groan, letting Asra cradle me against him. Navra is nowhere to be seen, but the scarf she had been working on is wrapped tightly around my shoulders.

“Dema, are you okay?”

“I -” I rub my temples. “Maybe.” One more lie, but what does it matter at this point?

There is sympathy in the Countess’s eyes when she looks over at me. “That did not go as I hoped." 

“I fucked up in there.” My voice shakes from somewhere deep in my chest and turn to tears as they reach my eyes. “I - I should have seen something like that . . . I always -” my arms press tight against my chest as if they're trying to protect my heart - or to smother it. I'm not sure which. Or which is better.

Asra curls his arms tighter around me and starts to strike not hair, murmuring susurrus in my ear as he does. Nasmira reaches out and pats my knee. "It was no fault of yours, dear. You were magnificent.”

“What do we do now? Just what happened three years ago?” The only thing I’ve confirmed is that no one really knows, except perhaps the courtiers who have every reason to keep that information to themselves. 

“I don't remember why Lucio's ritual failed three years ago.” Asra's hands tender in my shoulders, then he starts running his fingers through my hair again. “If I can find something at the palace that jogs my memory . . . It's the only thing I can think of to start with. At least, it might help us learn how to banish Lucio, but . . . Ilya . . .” Where's Faust? Both of us could use one of her comforting squeezes.

“I'm having Dr. Devorak brought to the palace.” Nadia's voice sounds small for the first time since I've known her. “Perhaps he'll be more forthcoming, now that the trial is over. I don't care to leave him in the Coliseum dungeons. No more than I care to execute an innocent man, even one who seems to desire it.” Covering her face with her hands, she groans. “It isn’t, of course, it isn't right. I meant for the trial to model justice for Vesuvia, but it has only accomplished the opposite.” She looks at us from between her fingers, eyeliner smudged by worrying at her nose and eyes. Without her mask, I almost don't recognize her. “I will, of course, assist you in any way I can. You need only ask.”

“Thank you, Nadi,” Asra's response lacks any of his usual optimism, and without it, I feel my heart sinking even lower. 

I stay quiet, turning and pressing my face into Asra’s neck. I don’t know what she can do. If she overturns the sentence now, after this circus of a trial, she’ll undermine much of her support among the populace. Nadia knocks twice on the ceiling of the carriage and it jolts to life, the seats beginning to sway. “Wait!” I straighten up suddenly. “Where’s Portia?” We can’t abandon Portia here, not now. 

“She said she had someone she had to speak with. Then she left before I could stop her.” Nadia twists her hands in her skirts. 

Nasmira picks up the narration. “Nahara and Navra followed. She’ll be safe enough from the mob with them. I hope.”

I'm not so sure. A good portion of the city is probably less than pleased with Nahara at the moment. Asra runs a hand down my back, and I let him soothe me back against his chest and hide my face in his neck. Portia said she had someone to speak with. Mazelinka, surely. Perhaps the clever old woman would have a plan, some pirating trick to use. And Nahara is with Portia. Nahara who was as displeased with the outcome of the trial as Nadia, and disgusted with having participated in it. 

It is precious little. So precious, precious little.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	7. Let the Only Sound Be the Overflow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Florence + the Machine, "What the Water Gave Me"

The guards had returned Julian back to the palace before we arrived with Nadia. He’s waiting in the guest room adjacent to mine, with guards placed outside both our doors; although I feel like that’s more a matter of keeping some of the members of the court away from him than preventing him from running. When we step into the room, he’s standing at the window, hands folded behind his back, head tilted down. He turns at the sound of the lock tumbling over and extends his arms. Part of me is angry enough that I want to just withhold any affection, tell myself that he doesn’t deserve it, that if he’s set on this path that he’s going to have to do it on his own, that this is too much, this is too far for me to follow, that I can’t.

I fall into his arms anyway, because I want that more. Let him stroke my hair, rub my back, fall onto his knees and press his head into my chest.

“Dema, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know that Nadia was planning that, to put you through that, I never -”

“How could you, Julian? How could you just say all those lies like that?”

He looks up at me, tears in both of his eyes. “They weren’t all lies, darling. Not about why. The why was true.” His lips press against my neck, murmuring repeating sorry over and over. 

I feel Asra’s warmth at my back as he slowly wraps his arms around me - around both of us. The embrace is tight and welcome, and - for a moment - I feel stable between the two of them. Ever so briefly stable. 

Asra gently pulls me away from Julian, guides me to the bed and sits me down as Julian follows. They’re both still touching me as we rearrange ourselves; my head ends up in Julian’s lap, Asra holding my legs and rubbing my side. I can feel their hands touch, pausing briefly, then tearing back apart. Then again. A little longer. I keep my eyes closed. Maybe if I never open them, everything will just pause here. That wouldn’t be so bad. 

And then Asra has to open his mouth.

“You're going to try to contact one of the major Arcana by dying? Have you completely lost your wits?”

“What?” Julian’s hand tightens on my arm for a moment. Spell broken, I sit back up between them with a groan.

“We found the book, in your . . . I don’t know what to call it.” Asra makes a frustrated noise that isn’t quite a growl. “My book. The one on the Arcana.”

“The Hanged Man has the cure for the plague, Asra. He gave it to me before. Don't you see why I have to try this?” Julian laughs, but it’s haunted and hollow. “Being hanged to talk to the Hanged Man, poetic - don’t you think?”

Exasperated, Asra covers his face with his hands then pushes them back through his hair. “You stupid, self-sacrificing man!” He stands and starts pacing around the room. “How do you plan to return from the Hanged Man's realm? You're no good to anyone dead.”

Julian idly picks up a decorative paperweight from the bedside table and cuts his palm open with a sharp edge. The mark on his neck glows as the superficial cut heals. “You should know, Asra. This spell, this curse you left me with. If there's an upper limit to what it will heal, I haven't found it yet.”

“Ilya, I didn't give you that.”

Julian's mouth opens with the beginning of a reply that doesn't come. He shakes his head and swallows hard. “You, you didn't?”

Asra stops in front of him, hands held out to his side with open palms. “What did I do that makes you think I would have cursed you?”

“You didn't do this? Not after all of that, the blood, all the shit you tried? I thought this was just another of your experiments. That I was . . .”

“Oh, Ilya, I . . . I'm so . . . I don't know what to say.” Asra closes his eyes, painfully tight, then blinks rapidly, trying to fight back the tears glistening in the corner of his eyes. “No, that mark signifies that you cut a bargain with one of the Arcana. I _couldn't_ have given it to you. And it tells me _nothing_ about the nature of the bargain. I have no idea if that is powerful enough to bring you back from the dead.” Asra kneels down on the other side of Julian with a huff, hands clenching into fists and resting on his knees. “Don’t do this. You weren't just . . . I'm so sorry that I couldn't . . . I can’t bear . . .”

“I have to try. The plague is coming back, and -” Julian's eyes dart to me and then back to Asra. The look between them hangs heavy in the air. “I'll do anything to prevent what happened before.”

 _Just what happened before?_ I want to scream the question at them, but another round of demurrals will only leave me more frustrated and irritated, and I don’t want to be frustrated and irritated with them, not now. Not when Julian has arranged to die tomorrow. Unless.

“Asra, Julian has an affinity for the Hanged Man. Can’t we try to reach him now? If we get the cure that way there's no need for -” I circle my hands in the air avoiding the word then grab Julian's hands. “Portia and Mazelinka can get you out of the city - especially with the Countess's help.”

Asra looks up at me, a spark of hope in his eye. “I just don't know if it will work, especially without any preparations.”

“But you do know enough to at least try it.”

“Yes. I think so.”

I sit back, folding my arms across my chest in preparation for them to both argue with me. “Send me with Julian.”

“What, no, absolutely not!” Julian grabs both my shoulders. “What if you get hurt? It's too dangerous.”

“And hanging isn't?”

“Well, in the hanging scenario, I'm the only one in -”

“The plague is returning. If the Hanged Man knows the cure, retrieving it is too important to gamble on the chance that this, this _curse_ of yours will actually bring you back from the dead.”

“But . . .” He glances at Asra, looking defeated. 

Asra sighs and bows his head. “She has a point. I don't like it, but she has it.”

“Julian.” I touch one hand to either side of his face. “Trust me, we've got a better chance of solving this together.”

“I . . . I don't . . . Damn. You're right.”

I kiss him. Briefly. Lips closed. “It'll be fine.” It has to be fine. I won't let it be anything other than fine, and I am very stubborn. “Umm, Asra, do we need to set up anything special.”

Asra shakes his head. “No, nothing we can do quickly will be of much use.” He scoots back up onto the bed, crosses his legs in front of him, and pats the side next to him. “Circle up, this will be a little easier if we're all touching.”

We arrange ourselves in a circle, knees touching, holding hands. Julian on my left; Asra on my right. Asra's hand is relaxed in mine. Julian's trembles. I squeeze it and flash him what is, I hope, a smile that is somewhat more confident than what I feel.

“What I'll do is try to send you through my gate. Just close your eyes and focus on your breath.”

I give Julian's hand another squeeze, and close my eyes, pulling back my awareness to feel of air flowing through my nose and throat and into my lungs. 

“Am I doing this right?”

“You’re doing fine, Ilya.” Asra's voice is warm and soothing, and I drift into darkness before opening my eyes.

Asra’s gate is as fiercely colored as before, vivid and beautiful, and this time raging. A strong, steady wind pushes through the trees, rolling the vibrant, lime green over. Their silvered undersides further fracture the streaks of lightning from a storm rolling in across the distance. The same wind drives waves across the surface of the pool that was so still, so peaceful before. Asra clutches my hand and whispers in my ear. “I’ve never seen it like this. Violent.” 

Julian holds his hands out by his side, palms up to catch the sprinkle of warm rain, as the wind whips his hair wildly about his face. “What is this place?”

“A gate. A sort of antechamber to the arcane realms.”

“So this isn’t the real world?”

“It’s real. It’s just not our world.” Asra wraps the fingers of his free hand around Julian’s wrist. “The water is a passage to the realms of the different arcana. You’ll sort of be the guide for you and Dema both to reach the Hanged Man.”

“How? I don’t understand any of this.”

“You don’t need to. You just have to step into, well, under the water. Like calls to like, so hopefully, if you just let go, just give in, you’ll be pulled to the Hanged Man’s Realm. I hope.”

“You _hope_?” Julian pushes his tangled hair from his face. 

“Well, that’s how it should work.”

“Should? Should is the best you can do?”

“Ilya, I’m not that powerful.”

Julian shakes his head. “I don’t like this. What if something happens?”

“I don’t like it either.” Asra pinches the fingers of both his hands together, then slowly draws them apart. A delicate silver chain forms as he does. “Here. Dema, give me your hand.” I hold out one arm and he loops one end of the chain around my wrist, clutching the other end tightly. “If something goes wrong, tug on this, and I’ll be able to pull you both back.” He brushes his fingers over my knuckles. “But be careful anyway.”

“We will.” I wrap my fingers around Julian’s hand, tugging him toward the incandescent pool. The wind stills as I take a step closer to the water, as though the storm is resolving along with my mind.

He looks down at me and shakes his head. “You're sure?”

“I am.” At least, I'm sure we have to try whether this works or not.

“Alright then.” Julian steps past me and into the pool. He turns to face and takes my other hand, holding tight to both as he walks backwards into the water. Two, three steps, and then the water closes around us both.

Underwater there’s no pressure in my chest, no screams from my lungs that I need oxygen. Ah, I remember, the rules here aren't what they are. I tell myself that I don't need to breathe and extend my arms, floating in the warm water. Julian struggles above me, grabbing my hand and trying to fight his way to the surface. No. That won't work. I kick closer to him and put my hands on either side of his face, running my thumbs along his cheekbones, then pressing my forehead to his. 

_Let go, my love._

The muscles in his jaw relax and we float, suspended together between worlds before the current pushes us up.

Julian emerges from the water with a gasp. “Are you okay?” He grabs my shoulders, peering closely at my face then running his hands down my body. “We almost drowned. You - you’re really calm for someone who almost drowned.” He still doesn't know, still doesn’t understand that the regular rules don’t apply here.

“Julian.” I touch his face. “It's not our world. We didn't actually need to breathe. Look!” I get my feet under me and stand. “A moment ago we were in deep water. Now it barely reaches my knees.”

“I . . . Oh, magicky things.” Julian leans his head against the top of my own. “Why always the magicky things.”

Laughing, I look around. We're in a swamp. Cypress trees stand with us in the still water, surrounded by mist. Such a verdant place should teem with life: the sounds of birds, the splashes of frog diving into the water. Instead, we’re surrounded by silence, as if everything except the water flowing slowly around us has paused in time. I take Julian's hand in mine; he looks like he could use the reassurance.

“Come on, there's no point in standing still.”

“Wait, what about the line Asra was going to send with us?” 

I hold up my free hand. The delicate, glowing chain is still knotted around it trailing off into nothing. “Right here.” I do feel better knowing that I can tug on it and have Asra pull us out.

“Well. If we don't actually need to breathe, I guess direction doesn't matter either. Let's just go -” He looks back over his shoulder. “That way.”

We pick our way through the bog, finding as we go along, bubbles with random objects caught in the middle of falling apart, or being put back together, depending on how one looks at it. Julian wants to touch them all, and I have to repeatedly pull him away. There’s no sign of a path of any sort, and the light is diffuse and sourceless, hindering rather than helping orientation. We walk in as straight of a path as possible, circling around trees and trying to keep moving in what we’ve arbitrarily decided to be forward. At random intervals, the world jars around us, then we’re in what I swear is the same spot, but facing in a different direction. The first time it happens, Julian yelps and clings to me. By the third, he seems to have adapted. At least, as much as one can adapt to such a thing.

A massive tree demands a pattern of motion better described as circumambulation rather than simply a circle. After part of a turn, a stone stairway spirals steeply about the tree. Julian shrugs at me and lets go of my hand. “This reminds me of a temple I saw once, in Drakr, you had to be especially curious, or especially pious to make it all the way to the top.” As he speaks, he starts climbing the stairs. I suppose it makes as much sense as anything here, but as he ascends the steps crumble under his feet and change into briar bushes, that catch him, suspending him upside down.

“Julian!” I rush around to where he hangs, face at roughly the same height as mine. He smiles sheepishly.

“Seemed like a good idea at the time.”

I look up at the thorny vines. His legs and one arm are tangled in them. “Can you get loose?”

He wiggles around but doesn't fall free. “Doesn't look like it. Hey, come here.” I take a step closer to him. He somehow gets his free hand to the back of my neck and pulls me close enough to kiss. I'm surprised, but sink into it after a moment, twining my hands through his hair, pulling his head back further, far enough to nibble at his neck, letting myself fall into the moment. After all, time warps in these realms as well.

Pulling back I check his face, his cheeks are red, more I suspect from hanging upside down than the kiss. “I still need to get you down.”

“I mean, you don't have to, at least, not right away.” He bats his eyes at me and pouts.

I kiss him again, but quickly this time. “I'll add hanging you by your feet to my mental list of things to do to you.” He gapes at me for a moment and then flashes that leering smile of his. I roll my eyes, and think for a moment, before gathering my magic at my palms, creating heat this time, instead of light. I touch one of the vines and it pulls back. Success.

“Tuck your chin in. I don't know if I can catch you _,_ and I’m a fan of you with an unbroken neck.”

Julian stretches his neck out to steal another kiss then obliges me. I reach as high as I can, managing to touch the vines wrapped around his legs. He falls free, and I sort of catch him, mostly breaking his fall by tumbling backward into the muddy water. He catches himself on his arms before his full weight hits me, ending up with his head just over my chest.

“Hey, there.” He kisses the top of one breast where my shirt has slipped down.

“Hey, yourself.” I run a hand over the top of his head and lay there in the shallow water, catching the breath that I don't actually need, Julian contentedly resting against me. The water feels thick and sluggish around me and the unnatural stillness of the forest seems more oppressive following the crash and splash of Julian's fall. “I'm not sure I like this realm much.”

“Hmm.” He pushes my shirt further aside and nuzzles closer to my breast. “I'm not sure I mind it.”

I snort. “You are impossible, my darling.”

“I know. Can't take me anywhere.” I push my hands against his shoulders before he can get my shirt any lower. “Alright.” He pouts but starts to lift himself up from my chest. “Got to find this Hanged Man. Save the city. Hero shit.”

As Julian lifts his head from my chest, I stiffen with shock. His right eye isn't - simply isn't there. “Oh my god!”

“What?”

“Your -” I lift my hand from the water and cup the right side of his face, thumb touched to his cheekbone. “Your eye.”

“My -” Julian's fingers close over mine, then tentatively press against the sunken lower lid of the empty socket. He sits up and furiously flips his hair over that side of his face. “What the hell? Dema, I, sorry -”

“Sweetheart, it's . . . I've seen worse, really.” I sit up as best I can with him still straddling my legs. “Besides, it's not - it's just something in this realm.”

“I, uh, still, it's . . .”

I flatten my hand against his stomach and push gently. “Get up, Julian, still have to find this Hanged Man.”

He stands, fidgets again with his hair to arrange more of it over the right side of his face, then leans down to me with his hand extended. I grab it and let him pull me to my feet and hug me tight against his chest. “Nothing quite makes sense here, does it?”

“This -” I pull away from him. “Come, I'll talk as we're walking.”

“But we don't, um, we don't know where we're going.”

“That's part of it, I think.” I hold his hand tight in mind and start walking through the water. The current keeps changing as we move, sometimes fighting our steps and other times pushing us so hard that we stumble. “There are a few different ways the nature of the Hanged Man is understood. Sometimes as a sacrifice, actively chosen for some gain - a new way of knowing or setting. Other times as a passive giving in to one's fate. Or a sort of acceptance of being caught between two states. One might say between life and death, or whatever those ideas stand in the place of. It's a complex card to be drawn in a reading.” The current changes again, pushing to the left, and I follow it, pulling Julian after me. “Artemis would tell you that it’s like a baby turning its head down, preparing to be born. There’s a connection with the Empress. The Hanged Man is numbered twelve, which reduces to three, which is the Empress’s number, and associated with motherhood, relationships coming to fruition, things like that.” I’m rambling a bit now, but it does fill the silence as we walk. “And there’s a connection with the World, which also reduces to three. The figure in the World dances in the air - a different kind of suspension between states or phases, but different. The Hanged Man is incomplete. The World is the completion of one cycle and the beginning of another.”

“So, a sort of coming apart in order to, um, be put back together?”

“You could think of it that way. Sacrifice, pain even, but in anticipation of something not yet realized.” I stop speaking and for a moment, the sloshing of water as we walk through the swamp is the only sound around us. “I think, something like what you’ve done in the past. What you’re trying to do now.”

“So you understand then, why I need to do, I have to somehow get that answer. That cure. Even if -”

I wrap my fingers tighter around his. “I - I understand, I just don't want you to . . . I don't want to lose you.”

“I don’t want to lose you either.”

“Why me? Specifically. I know you care about the whole city. I think you care about everyone, including people you’ve never met - even people who called for your death. But, when you talk about me, there’s something else behind it, something else in your voice.”

He stops and wraps his arms around me. “Darling, I can't -” His chest heaves with what might be a sob. “I failed you - you specifically, you particularly - before. And I can’t do that again.” 

There’s another gut-twisting, jarring jags in the space and the time of this place, and the current of the water changes again, pushing us back the way we came. Julian’s arms tighten, then he lets go with a sigh, turning to follow the current.

This time, as we meander through the trees, circling around them only to find ourselves in an entirely new part of the swamp, the current becomes a clear stream cutting through the muddy water. It continues to push us to and fro in a manner that I can’t make any sense of, but slowly the path of clear water widens. The hue of the realm begins to change around us, blues and greens replacing the muddy reds. Branches stir, and I hear the beating of wings, even if there are still none of the bird calls that I would expect in a forest. A sinuous form glides through the water to our side. The snake lifts its spade-shaped head, and I pull Julian away from it, recognizing the sign of poison, even if I doubt it is interested in us. Snakes usually mind their own business. Usually.

Gentler now, the current nudges us into vines that hang low over the water. Julian extends his arm, pushing them aside. Through the misty air, an uncanny silhouette begins to resolve. A raven's head and a man's body contrasting with the bat-like posture. Julian's breath catches. A screeching bird call cuts through the air as the realm twists on itself, spinning about. When it almost makes sense again, the raven figure - the Hanged Man - is balanced on one foot. Obsidian eyes glint in the low light as the Arcana tilts his head and blinks at us curiously.

Suddenly the beaked mouth opens and the figure breaks into a raucous caw that turns to laughter. “You've given me an eye already?” Vines snap around my wrists and Julian's, dragging us down or up because the realm itself is moving about again as if it can't decide whether it wishes to be upright or upturned. I panic grabbing Julian’s arm and jerking on the end of Asra’s chain. As the Hanged Man’s realm distorts and fades to black, his voice follows us. “What are you willing to offer now?”

My eyes snap open in the palace guest room. Asra pulls me into a kiss. Then - not exactly to my surprise - he turns to Julian and does the same. Julian's eyes go wide with shock, then he leans in, bringing his hands to Asra's shoulders and pushing him back against the wall. Exhausted, I shift my legs around and lay down, head against Julian's thigh and an outstretched hand resting on Asra's.

Eventually, they part, staring at each other and breathing hard. Asra looks away first, hands going to the bag still slung around his shoulders, retrieving the carved raven. He holds it out to Julian who takes it from and turns it over cautiously as if he’s worried that it will come to life and bite.

“Ilya.” Asra begins to speak, pauses, and then starts again. “When I came back and Dema was . . . gone . . . At first, I was just so jealous.” He touches the left side of his chest, he reaches out to me fingers brushing over my collarbone, then rests over my heart for a moment before lifting to brush my lips. “Then, you were you, and you were the only good part of my life then, but she was still gone, and everything felt incomplete - and wrong, and I didn’t deserve anything good, and I put all that on you, Ilya.” His hand moves to Julian's face now - fingertips along his jaw, thumb stroking his bottom lip. “I'm sorry. But, finding this carving, I remember how I felt when I made them. And, I couldn’t give you what you wanted because I didn’t even have it . . .”

Julian cuts him off with another kiss. Asra leans in this time. He pushes Julian back against the floor. I shift around as they do, reclining on my side, idly stroking Asra's back or Julian's arm. When they break for air, Asra turns his head to me, a slight smile on his lips. I lean over and press my lips against him, but just briefly. Not so much as to interrupt them. Not now. Not when Asra looks lighter than I ever remember seeing him, and there's just a little less tension held in Julian's jaw. He squeezes my hand and I bring his fingers to my mouth, kissing them gently as melancholy rushes over me. After all, I am not quite with them, because the question remains: _Where was I?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spent a bit of time trying to research the evolution of the art for the Hanged Man. I ended up referencing [the art from the Universal Dali deck](https://museum.oglethorpe.edu/permanent-collection/salvador-dali-prince-love-hanged-man/), or at least trying to. That and channeling memories of canoeing along the Wolf River outside of Memphis. Hopefully it worked. :)
> 
> Also, I now very much want a Dali deck, but it's more than a little outside of my current budget. Sadness. Unpaid internships are such a _joy_.


	8. There's Something in My Blood Denies the Memories of the Acts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's title from Suzanne Vega ["Blood Makes Noise."](https://youtu.be/v6qvIhygLTs) Go have a listen! :)

Eventually, we settle into a small pile on the bed, misery juxtaposed with contentment. Asra is laying on his back, one hand folded behind his head, the other tangled in Julian’s hair. Julian and I are curled up on either side of him, Julian’s head on his shoulder and mine on his stomach, reaching across to rest my fingers on Julian’s side. We’re all three quiet, listening to each other’s breath and soaking in the shared warmth.

Julian speaks first. “Um, where’s Faust?”

Asra sighs. “I sent her to Muriel.” He pauses, and his chest rises a bit as he stretches his back and the hand that was behind his head moves to my shoulder. When he continues, his voice is hesitant because certainly he already knows the answer. Certainly. “Did it - did you get what you needed?”

“The Hanged Man refused us. Said he demanded more than empty hands.” I can't keep the bitterness out of my voice. Asra may get to take all future card reading business once all this is said and done and I can swear never to speak to any supernatural personages ever again. I'm developing a deep dislike for the members of the Major Arcana.

“So, we're back - that is, we're back to my original plan.”

“No. There's got to be another way.” Asra sits up suddenly, hands going for his bag and his books as Julian and I scramble to right ourselves. His grey eyes meet mine from across Asra, resigned and sad. I desperately want a different option as well but with the light fading fast in the sky, I don't know what that could be. “Besides -” Asra flips open a notebook, beginning to thumb through the page rapidly. “The Hanged Man said no. How do you know that he’ll give you the answer if . . .”

Julian places his hand over Asra’s. “He asked what I was willing to give this time.” He lifts his hand from Asra’s and touches the right side of his face, slowly, as if he fears that the eye will still be missing in this realm. “An eye last time. I, um, I think . . .”

“No! I’m _not willing_ to give him your life. 

“Asra,” I tried to make my voice sound more resolved than I actually felt. “We can’t let the plague come back.”

“I know . . . but . . .” He fists his hands in his hair. Julian touches him again, cautiously, as if he’s afraid Asra will shatter physically as well emotionally; for once, Julian may be worrying exactly as much as warranted rather than worrying too much.

“What happened before can’t happen again.” 

“You’re -” Asra looks at me instead of Julian as he speaks. He reaches out and runs his fingertips along my jaw, then finally turns his eyes to Julian. “You’re right, Ilya. But, I . . . I am so, so very scared.”

Portia bursts into the room. “Ilya. We are leaving. Now.” She looks at the three of us and pauses for a second, but once again, I’m impressed with her poker face. “Come on, Mazelinka’s waiting at the back gate with a carriage and Nahara’s with me, and we can get you out through -”

“Pasha.” Julian disentangles himself from Asra and me with remarkable speed. He grabs Portia’s hands in his. “I can’t leave.”

“What? You have to. They’re going to hang you tomorrow at an hour past dawn.”

“I know. I, umm. Sit down.”

He quickly explains the plan to her, and since we went to the Hanged Man’s realm empty-handed and came back empty-handed, it seems that his original plan is the only option left. Portia’s expression increases in disbelief as he outlines what he thinks will happen. She stares in silence when he finishes.

 _“Ty s’uma soshyol?”_ She switches into their native language, shouting. _“Durak. Idiot!”_ The last is clear enough, even if the vowels are pronounced differently. 

“I can’t let the plague come back. Not if I can, if I can do something to stop it. You weren’t here, Pasha. You didn’t see, didn’t see how awful it was.”

“But, but . . . I only got you back.”

 _“Pasha, vsyo budit kharasho! Ya znaiou shto Ya delaiou.”_

I whisper in Asra’s ear. “Why don’t we give them some space?”

He nods in agreement. “Maybe we can find Lucio’s old dining room. Something there might jog my memory as to why the ritual went wrong that night.” We both slide off the bed. Julian looks at us, eyes wide with trepidation, and pauses his conversation with Portia.

I wrap my arms around him, tucking my head against his shoulder and speaking low in his ear. “You and Portia need to talk. And Asra and I need to try to figure out why the ritual went wrong three years ago.”

Asra rubs his shoulder, hand lingering for a moment longer than might be necessary. “We’ll be back soon.”

Julian nods reluctantly and while he and Portia stare at each other, Asra and I gather up our things. When I snatch my bag from the table, it drops harder than I expected, pulling my arm down with it. Glancing inside, I’m greeted by the hoary leather spine of the old grimoire from the library, the one filled with Asra’s scrawled notes. The one that he still hasn’t answered my questions about. But perhaps now that he seems motivated to reconstruct whatever he’s forgotten himself . . . it’s worth trying again to ask. Maybe. I sling the bag over my shoulder and tug Asra after me. Behind us, Portia is still scolding Julian. Nahara stands at the door, arms folded over her chest. 

She tilts her chin down, scowls, and shakes her head. “Doesn’t sound like he’s cooperating with Portia, is he?”

“Not in the least.”

“Should I send for the captain?”

“Who?”

Nahara arches a golden eyebrow at me. “Captain Mazelinka?” 

Not just a pirate then, but a pirate captain. That makes sense. Mazzelinka projects command, and that explains where Portia got the same trait. “Yeah, you probably should. Might take the spoon from her first though.”

Nahara snorts. “Or not.”

On second thought, even if Nahara could wrest that spoon away, she is probably right. I start to laugh at the mental image, then stop myself and glance around the hall. I recognize one of the guards standing a discreet distance from the door from my first day at the palace and Nadia’s little game of hide and seek with Asra’s deck of cards. 

“Bludmila, I need you to do me a favor. The gate at the back of the garden. Outside of it, there’s an old woman waiting with a cart. Please get her, or send someone for her. She’ll want to speak with Dr. Devorak.” And probably beat him with a spoon, but I leave that part out. 

Bludmila looks skeptical. “And the Countess?”

Nahara folds her arms across her chest and looks down at the guard. “I’ll take full responsibility if my sister disapproves.”

“Okay.” Bludmila still looks reluctant but nods in assent. “I’ll take care of it.”

“Thank you.”

Asra and I walk away as Bludmila calls over another guard from down the hall to take her place. “Do you remember where Lucio’s private dining room was?”

“Probably in his wing. I can’t imagine the vain ass wanted to be seen in public at that point.”

“You really hate him.”

“Infinitely. After what he did to my par . . .” He stops hard and shakes his head, like whatever he meant to say was too much. “To Muriel, I can't. There's nothing that would convince me to forgive him for that.”

“What did he do?” I want to know the answers - both to the question of what made Muriel want to be forgotten because I can’t imagine that Lucio didn’t have a hand in that, and to the crime that Asra couldn’t quite bring himself to put into words.

Asra starts to speak, stops, and shakes his head. “That's Muri's story to tell if he chooses.” 

He isn’t going to return to that lacuna in his speech. Not now at least. Why doesn’t he think that he can trust me? I take his hand in mine and squeeze it, both to comfort him and to allay my own fears. “So, which one of us will be towed around like a rag doll this time?” I’m not happy to return here. The prior visits ended with either Asra or me being thrown about by a ghost with no manners and getting precious little in the way of answers for our troubles. Asra doesn’t appear to be any happier about it than I am. He responds with a disgruntled sound and clutches my hand tighter in his.

But there's still a chance of finding something, anything that might allow us to forestall Julian’s hanging. It's enough that I'm willing. 

The stairs to Lucio’s wing are as dark and deserted as ever. Two sets glowing eyes emerge from the darkness, along with a low growl. Asra tenses beside me, but I haven’t yet heard anything except two loyal, neglected dogs. I let go of his hand and climb another step stretching out both my arms in front of me, palms up. “Mercedes, Melchior,” I call softly. “Hey, babies.” There’s a happy yelp, and Mercedes pitches herself down the steps, nosing at my hands. I rub her soft ears and laugh.

“Damn dogs,” Asra mutters.

“Ah, they’re not that bad. They didn’t get any say in who their master was, after all.” She licks my hand and bounds back up the steps where Melchior - certainly the more skeptical of the two but at least willing to play along with his sister’s acceptance - waits. I hitch up my split skirt with one hand - it was cut long to accommodate for the heels that I’m no longer wearing - and continue up the stairs. Asra radiates reluctance as he follows me. 

The door to Lucio’s bedchamber has been locked. I try for a minute to flip the mechanism with magic. Something creates a viscosity - seemingly in the air itself, resisting my manipulations. I push harder multiplying the force with magic, shoving at the deadbolt itself. The wood around the latch splinters; I perhaps overdid it. The dogs spring in as the door swings open. Melchior leaps onto Lucio’s bed, turning about three times before laying down. Mercedes prances over to the full length portrait of Lucio on the wall.

Asra looks around the room suspiciously. He paces a circuit, hand brushing over the wooden furniture, that gleams once more after the scrubbing that Nadia put the room through, carefully avoiding the portrait of Lucio on the wall. “I had hoped I might somehow just remember how to get to the dining chamber from here.”

“No such luck?”

“No.”

“Hmm, maybe the dogs know something.” Melchior shoots me a look of absolute disdain from the bed, but Mercedes is nosing around the portrait. I crouch beside her, talking in a voice pitched well above my normal range. “Whatdya think, girlie, know where the super secret dining room is?” She pushes her nose against my hand, then the corner of the portrait. I reach down running my hand along the edge of the frame. Just back from the corner, I find a button, hidden by the gilding. When I press it, the portrait swings open, revealing a small entry, just big enough for a single person behind it.

Asra peers over my shoulder. “Ah, another dark, ominous passage. Perfect.”

“What’s that?” Instead of the stale air that I’m expecting, the passage smells of a feast, rich and savory, with the sweet-sharp smell of wine overlaying it all. Beside me, Mercedes, sniffs, then growls low in her throat before both dogs take off, fleeing the bedroom.

“Now it’s extra ominous.” Asra extends a hand, a sphere of pale lilac light spinning above it. “Shall we?”

The stairway curves down into an elaborate dining room, windowless but well lit by chandeliers that should not, by any regular laws of the world, be lit. A long table is set for twenty-two, each delicately steaming meal is different, presumably selected for the guest in question. Elevated trays of delicacies parade down the center of the table, tempting with color and texture. I reach out toward a platter of cherry tarts, nearly glowing from the intense red of the berries before thinking better of it.

Next to me, Asra goes suddenly rigid - eyes blank and spine painfully straight. Something jerks him to the chair to the left of the head of the table. He folds, more than sits, into the chair, and his fingers wrap around a knife and fork, slicing the roasted lizard looking thing artfully surrounded by roast mushrooms and parsley on the gilded plate. He stabs a piece of the meat and begins to bring it to his mouth.

“Asra!” I grab his hand in mine. His fingers uncurl and the fork falls clattering onto the plate. The meal in front of him turns into a rotten, putrid mess, and he shoves himself away from the table, nearly toppling us both over in his haste.

“That . . . that has to be one of the strongest magical compulsions I’ve ever felt. Thanks. I’m not sure all the wine in the world would have washed the taste of that out of my mouth.”

As I look down the table, I feel room shifting and folding in on itself, much as space and time have when I’ve been in the realms of the major Arcana. The dishes change before me. A plate of pasta becomes a wriggling mass of maggots. The exoskeleton of a lobster sinks in on itself. The cherry pastries that so tempted me when we first walked into fuzz over with greenish molds that blackens while I watch it. 

“What is this place? What’s wrong with it?”

“The kind of magic that would be required to bring back someone from the - grant a new body, would have to be incredibly powerful. I’m not surprised it still lingers, especially if the ritual was never finished.” Asra finds his deck in his bag and removes the Magician card, placing it at the seat he had been pulled into. “Twenty-two places, twenty-two arcana.”

“Asra?” I shove aside the plate of moldering food and pull the book from my bag and lay it on the table between us. The linen, spotless a moment before, is now covered in a thick layer of dust. “This what you had bookmarked. I didn’t get through all the notes, but -” 

He snatches the book from under my fingertips with trembling hands. “I’d hoped never to see this damn thing again.”

“What were you trying to go? Anchoring the spirits of the dead? Possessing a body? Please, Asra, tell me something.”

He groans and lays his head down on the table, mumbling something. I can only make out the word _‘desperate.’_ I lean over and run my fingers through his hair. He raises his head and takes a deep breath. “Lucio wanted a new body. A replacement for his thrice damned and beplagued one.”

“So what? You were going to try to create a new . . . Can that even be done?”

Asra thumbs through the next few pages of the book, finding more slips of paper covered in his handwriting. He sighs and pushes a hand back through his hair. “To do that, well, it takes a lot of arcane power.”

I glance around the table. “All the major Arcana?” My cards are in my bag. I take Asra’s deck from him out and shuffle through it face up until I find the High Priestess and lay the card down on the place setting nearest the one Asra was pulled to. 

He’s miserable when he looks back up from the book. “Apparently. I don’t think these are all of my notes. But it’s something.”

The Empress is next, followed by the Emperor, then the Hierophant. Asra continues looking through the book as I walk slowly along the table, laying out cards and listening to Asra mumbling his way through his old notes. My hand shakes a little when I reach the twelfth place setting and lay out the Hanged Man. “Why did you go along with it, Asra? What did Lucio hold over you?”

There’s a long pause before he answers, and I don’t like the amount of time it takes for him to choose his words. “I had something I wanted too. A summoning of this magnitude, everyone who participated would have access to some of that power.”

What could he have wanted so badly that he arranged something like this? “That’s all you’re going to say?” As I set the fifteenth card down, a cold hand wraps around my hand, and a low laugh cuts off whatever Asra was about to say.

“He's a difficult little ass, isn’t he?” The longer Lucio’s ghost hangs onto my hand, the colder I feel and the more solid his appearance becomes. He’s not the monstrous goat this time, just a monster of a human. I shake my arm hard, loosening my grip enough to jerk my now freezing hand back to my chest.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Asra snaps from the other side of the table.

“Haunting. What did you think?” Red eyes turn to me. “Figure out who killed me yet?”

“Fuck you,” I spit at him. “Julian is going to die for it.”

The ghost looks down at his feet. Contrition? Maybe. “But it wasn’t him! I know that much.”

“Lot of help you’ve been!”

Lucio raises his head, and his face actually looks sad. I still can’t decide whether it’s genuine or an act. “What could I have done? It isn’t my fault.”

Asra slams his fists on the table in frustration. “Is anything ever your fault?”

The ghost laughs again. “Fine words from you, Asra!” He draws out the vowels, turning the name itself into a sneer. “Not like you’ve ever made a mistake.”

“You had my . . . you had two people put to death just so no one would have a mechanical arm like yours. You forced people into killing each other for your entertainment. I’ve never done anything like that!”

“Oh, I know, I know, poor Asra. So very, very innocent. Blameless _really._ ” Lucio sits back in his chair and crosses his arms across his chest. There isn’t time for the two of them to bicker, but I’m far, far too tired to try and stop them. Rolling my eyes, I leave the Devil card beside him and continue around the table, setting cards out as I go.

“You lounged around while the city died! You didn’t care until it was you! You did nothing to stop it!”

“Nothing? I did what I was advised to do! Quarantine the city, bring in research. You're the one who ran away. You're the one who had to play their own little game. You didn’t care until -” Lucio pauses, and I can feel his eyes on me. I take a deep breath and lay the Moon down next to the corresponding place setting. The ghost cackles, low this time, and for a second his human form is replaced by the nightmare beast. “Well, we know what it took to make you care. At least, you and I do.”

“I’m nothing like you!”

No, just two reckless knights running at each other with swords raised. The Sun next. When I find the card in the deck, it’s reversed.

“You think I wanted the plague in the first place? Do you think I want it to return? Hellish way to die! I wouldn’t wish . . . well, not even I’m enough of an ass to wish that on anyone.”

Judgment. Reversed. Probably for all our sins known and unknown.

“And your solution was to let Valdemar cut up the living.”

“You could have just cooperated a little. Helped me. I would have found a way to pay what I owed. Somehow . . . But no, nothing else mattered, as long as you got what you wanted.”

The World. Cycles completing then beginning anew - never ending triumphs and failures. And finally, at the head of the table, the Fool. I set the card down, trying to ignore the two of them continuing to trade insults and accusations. I place my fingers on the card gently, intending to straighten it in front of me, as if it might reveal something to me if only I can find the right place for it in the puzzle.

No speech in my head this time, just a tug at my wrist, gentle and insistence first, then suddenly rougher, forcing me into the chair at the head of the table. Asra was pulled to the seat of the member of the Arcana that he has an affinity for. Is my affinity for the Fool? Innocence, but also naivete and being manipulated by others. Certainly, I feel like I am headed recklessly for the edge of a cliff often enough.

As I sink into the velvet chair, a roar rips through the room and for a moment, all I can see is flame and all I can hear is two shrieks - my own and . . . Lucio’s? 

The flame clears, leaving behind a sensation of emptiness, of distance. To my left, the familiar fox headed Magician regards me with an inscrutable stare. Beside him is a stately, owl headed woman - the High Priestess? - a few seats away from her, a figure with the head of a ram in the place of the Hierophant, and further down, the raven headed Hanged Man who denied Julian and me earlier today. Other places are filled, but most remain empty - an incomplete table for a ritual that did not go as planned. I look down at my reflection in the empty, polished plate in front of me. I’m naked, my hair long and tangled wildly around my face, eyes empty of anything except shock and pain. 

I shove back from the table. The chair topples, and I fall into the floor catching myself on my arms, hip jarring hard against the floor. Asra is next to me in a moment, pushing my hair back from my face, helping me to sit up. Lucio's ghost has disappeared, banished by whatever just happened. I lean against him, catching my breath, then straighten up.

“I think, I think I saw whatever happened. Just a glimpse.”

“What? Dema -”

“Asra, they - the major Arcana - weren’t all present. Maybe that’s why the ritual went wrong?”

His eyes narrow, and he purses his lips in annoyance. “That would have been like Lucio, to press ahead whether the conditions were in place or not. The book, my notes, we needed to have someone with an affinity for each of the Arcana, in order to draw on their power.”

Asra for the Magician, Nadia as the High Priestess, Julian as the Hanged Man, certainly - perhaps Valerius for the hierophant? But who else? “Could he be planning to complete the ritual at the Masquerade? Drawing the rest of the participants he needs from the guests?”

“Maybe.” Asra stands and offers me a hand up. “Which members of the Arcana were missing?”

I go around the table, pointing out the seats that were empty in my vision. Asra picks up the cards as I go, reviewing them and frowning. “This is quite a few people to identify and warn away if Lucio is trying to draw participants from the masquerade guests.”

“Maybe we can narrow it down some. Why did people participate the first time?”

Asra scans the table. He traces his hand lightly along the back of the High Priestess - Nadia’s - chair. “Nadia was miserable in her marriage; she was willing to pay any price to get out of it. Muriel - I, I never should have brought him into it all. And Ilya -” He stops behind the corresponding chair and runs his hands along the back and the sides. “Was desperate to find a cure for the plague by that point. I think that he felt guilty.”

“Guilty about what?”

“All the death. He . . . he believed he should have been able to save . . . well, everyone, when it comes down to it.”

“Asra, was I there?”

He looks down at his hands. Here we go again. “You were.”

“What I saw - felt - I was naked - in pain.” I close my eyes and rub my arms, trying to rid myself of the memory of the burning sensation in the vision. “What happened?”

Asra’s hand close around my shoulders, and I want to sink back against him, but even more, I want him to tell me the truth. All of it. At least, everything he knows of it. Just once.

“Dema, I -”

I can hear the evasion forming in the way he says my name. “Oh, nevermind,” I turn away from him. “Let’s go back to Julian. I don’t think there are any other answers here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Asra really is difficult sometimes.
> 
> Thanks for reading and remember to WASH YOUR HANDS!


	9. What Might Be is Now What Might Have Been - NSFW

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooo... most of this is pure unadulterated smut. Just, fyi. And maybe not as well edited, because editing smut is a very strange headspace. 
> 
> Non explicit summary in the endnotes if smut is not your thing.
> 
> Chapter title from Franz Ferdinand, "Outsiders"
> 
> Scavenger hunt! There is a more "appropriate" Edouard-Henri Avril piece for this chapter. But you're going to have to find it on your own. >;)

By the time we return, Portia has left. The bedroom is empty, and for a moment, I panic. Did something happen? Has Julian been taken already? Did time warp in other ways while we were in the dining room?

Then Julian calls from the bathroom. "I'm in here." He's sprawled in the tub, head tilted back, and eyes closed. "Figured I might as well just enjoy myself, enjoy the night. You know, if it might be . . ." He sits up, looking at us with pensive eyes, then picks up a bottle of rum from beside the tub and drinks deeply. "Nadia sent a bunch of goodies. Had the same idea, I think. Great minds, you know."

I sit on the edge of the tub and take the bottle from him. I need a drink or several myself. About half the wine is gone already, but knowing Nadia, there's more where it came from. Julian turns his head, pressing his lips to my upper arm, just by my shoulder. "Learn anything?"

Asra leans against the doorframe. "A little. The ritual was attempting, that is I was attempting to summon the power of all the major Arcana." 

That’s new. Asra usually doesn’t use language that directly acknowledges his role in events. I spare a moment to feel proud of him, even if I’m still annoyed by the extent of the things that he won’t tell me.

Julian lets his head loll back against the edge of the tub. “So complicated magicky things. Excellent.”

“Lucio wanted a new body. The intention was to gather a group of people who had an affinity for each of the major Arcana and channel power through them.” Asra crosses his arms over his chest. “But not everyone was present.”

“Things went . . . uh, sideways then?”

Asra glances at me with that same evasive look in his eyes. “To some extent, I think. I still don’t really know.”

“But you were, weren’t you, didn’t you say that you were in charge?”

“My memory is still - not quite complete.”

“Yes. Mine too.” Julian slips under the water. When he rises again, he wraps a damp arm around my waist, and I lean against him, ignoring the water soaking into my blouse from his hair. “More now, but not quite, not quite everything.” Another sigh. “Water’s getting cold. Could you?”

“Of course.” I dip my hand into the tepid water, working the spell to raise the temperature a few degrees. I spread my fingers, running them along Julian’s ribs, his lean stomach - too skinny. If nothing else, he’s right that he’s been running for far too long. I draw my hand slowly up the midline of his chest, over his neck, and tilt his chin back, leaning over to kiss him, gently at first, then a bit more insistently, as though this is indeed the last night. I stop suddenly and clutch his shoulders. It won't be. It can't be.

Asra seems to catch my mood. He joins us, sitting behind me on the edge of the tub and holding my shoulders. Julian touches my face gently, warm water dripping from his fingertips, but - for once - neither of them tries to convince me that it's going to be okay.

Asra's sigh is a long, warm breath against my back. He lifts his head, hands still on my shoulders. “Ilya, I -” The pause lingers. I feel Asra's forehead drop back against my shoulder as he gives up on whatever he wanted to say at first. “May I wash your hair?”

Julian blinks up at him, eyes owl wide with surprise. His neck bobs with a gulp, then he nods. Asra slides his hands down my shoulders and moves to the kneel at the head of the tub behind Julian. He works his hands through Julian’s hair, just as gently as he did with mine this morning. Was it only this morning? Julian lets his head fall back in Asra’s hands. There’s the hint of a smile on his lips as Asra’s thumbs work on his temples. Asra smooths his hair back and leans over and presses his lips to his forehead. “I’m sorry, Julian. For everything that I couldn’t give you before.”

Julian raises a hand and pushes it through Asra’s hair. “I’m sorry too.” He dunks his head under the water. Asra slides around the edge of the tub. Julian reemerges with water running down his face and pulls Asra into a kiss, hands sliding behind his head and messing up Asra’s curls, at least as much as they can be when their usual state is somewhat disordered. 

Asra stands, tugging Julian with him and wrapping him in a heavy towel and tugging him close. “But I've so much more to apologize for.”

They stand close, Asra's head on Julian's chest until Julian lifts his chin. “Hey, hey, don't worry about it. I remember now. Enough at least to understand.”

Asra turns away. The hand pressed to his mouth fails to hold back his sob. Julian's hand lingers on his shoulder until I take Asra from him, letting him bury his face against my shoulder and gently running his back. He can't keep holding everything back. Not just for my sake, for Julian's sake, but for his own.

Asra recollects himself while Julian dries off. He touches his forehead to mine with a whispered 'thank you' then takes the silk robe from where he hung it and tosses it around Julian's shoulders. “I wanted to wrap you up in silks and velvet so many times. Like something precious.” He lifts Julian’s left hand and presses the palm to his mouth, the same hand he so coldly cut before.

Julian smiles and shakes his head. “I'm not -”

Asra and I move in tandem. I wrap my arms around him tightly, and Asra puts his hand over Julian's mouth before the sentence can be finished. “Don't, Ilya. You're one of the most precious people in the world to me. It's why I was so scared. I think, Ilya, I can give you what you wanted now. If - if you still want it.”

“Asra.” Julian wraps both his hands around Asra’s and presses them against his lips. He leans down and kisses Asra, long and deep as I let go of him and back away, an extraneous personage in this scene. This scene that finished something that began while I was so mysteriously 'gone'.

Slowly I step backwards until I bump into the doorframe. Neither seems to notice as I withdraw from them. Somehow they look right like this: Julian with messy damp hair and in a robe that's threatening to fall off him, and Asra still wearing his usual long vest over the shirt from this morning - one that actually fits him across the chest. Contrasting and complementing. 

The mark on Asra's chest starts to glow first, soft light peeking through the limited space between their bodies. Then the sigil on Julian's throat responds.

My hands shake a little, and I clutch my left arm against my chest, trying to stop it.

Back in the bedroom, I find the aforementioned goodies that Julian had mentioned and pour myself a generous glass of whiskey before drinking it down far too quickly. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch a glimpse of myself in a full-length mirror. Watching my reflection - a stranger still in so many ways, I trace my fingertips along my face and over my torso, a worried expression in my eyes. Am I here? Or in some ineffable, important way am I still gone?

A gremlin in borrowed finery. Eyes lost in dark circles. Hair escaping the braids Portia put in because it's too fine to ever stay in one place for very long. Curvy, too short and a bit too heavy to be really attractive. No trace of the tattoo that Asra had mentioned earlier - the one that had angered my aunt. Where and what had it been? Something flashy and manic? Small and withdrawn? No scars, not even minor ones, except for the ones in my mind. All humans have scars. At least the ones that have lived for any time. The people who are real.

Asra appears behind me, the how if the mark fading from his chest. He slides his arms around my shoulder and kisses the top of my head. “I don’t like the look on your face.”

“It’s nothing. Just . . .”

He brushes the back of his fingers along my cheek, the nails dragging defined, but painless lines. “This is you. Whatever happened. You’re still the same person. I promise.”

“I know you need me to be, but am I really?”

“No one would be exactly the same. Not after three years. But the continuity is there, my love. What do you need?”

I turn and lean my head against him. “Just touch me.”

He smooths his hands over my back, and it’s easier, in the midst of the embrace and caresses to feel, to believe in him. But, but still, I pull back from him.

“I had scars before, right?” Some sort of history written on my flesh, not this perfect, vacant skin I’m wearing.

“Yes. You did.” His expression saddens, and his eyes dart to the side before returning to my face. I can tell he’s about to deflect the question. “Any magic marks hiding on you?”

“Hmm . . . I don't think so.” I’ll play along. I won’t push him any further - for now, at least; I can’t bear to see him upset again. And I don't feel like being upset again - not today, not with the prospect of tomorrow hanging over all three of us. I cross my arms under my breasts and shrug, glancing back over my shoulder. Julian’s sitting in a chair, facing us, the robe loose around him and a glass of whiskey in the other. “But I suppose you better check.”

Asra arches his eyebrows smiling mischievously. He steps closer to me and cups a hand around my chin, turning my face right and left, touching his lips to the corners of my mouth as he does. I can feel magic caressing my face along with his fingertips. Tilting my chin up, he traces a finger down my throat, to the hollow of my collar bone. “Hmm, nothing there.” He grabs my shoulders and turns me around, lifting my hair and kissing the back of my neck, pausing to graze his teeth along that one spot. He leans close to my ear and whispers, “Keep going?” In answer, I take his hands and guide them to the hem of my blouse, then lift my head enough to catch Julian’s eye and wink at him, as Asra pulls the shirt up and over my head. I pose for a moment with my arms raised. Ilya is frozen in front of me. I grin at him and lower my arms slowly, while Asra undoes the fastenings on the band around my breasts and lets it fall to the floor. His hands continue running over my back, tingling and warm with magic before coming to rest at my waist. 

“Nothing here either.” He slides his fingers underneath the waistband of my skirt, running them around to my navel then back again.

“I think you ought to be thorough. Wouldn’t you agree, Ilya?”

“I, um - Whatever you say, that is, yes.”

I smirk at him, then lift my chin and run my hand down my throat, snaking between my breasts as Asra undoes the clasps on the side seams of my skirt, pushing it down over my hips, hooking his thumbs in the waist of my knickers and tugging them down along with my skirt. He cups my ass, then runs his thumbs along the cleft, earning a delighted gasp. 

“Still nothing.” He kisses the back of my neck again. “Turn around.”

I turn slowly, kicking my fallen clothes out of the way. The corners of Asra’s mouth quirk up into a smirk as he runs his hands over my breasts, down to my hips, and then back up to my shoulders. He kisses my throat, then pushes me backwards, punctuating each step with another kiss, until with a final shove I fall into Ilya’s lap.

“Hey.” Julian runs the back of his nail down my cheek, eyes dark with arousal.

“Hey yourself.”

Asra chuckles and leans over me, kissing Julian then nuzzling at my neck. “You still good?”

“Mmmhmm.” I slide a hand behind me and find Julian’s cock, earning a sharp intake of breath, a pleased whine, and a large hand tightening on my waist. Asra drops to his knees in front me tracing his fingertips over my hips to the tops of my thighs. He nudges my legs apart and kisses the inside of each thigh before drawing his tongue across me. I moan as he repeats the movement, probing deeper, before sitting back on his heels, head leaning against my thigh. 

“I think you’re free of any magic marks.”

“Mmm.” I squeeze Julian’s cock, neglected for the past few minutes - although from his breathing he doesn’t seem to be suffering much for it - and run my other hand through Asra’s hair. “Are you sure you’re finished?”

He kisses my mouth and I can smell and taste myself, musk and spice on his lips. “I never want to be finished with you.” He tilts my head back, kissing my neck before dragging his tongue down my torso and back between my legs. I moan as he circles my clit with his tongue, and Julian’s hand on my breast, his mouth on my neck, and his chest warm against my back and, and . . . 

Julian nuzzles against the top of my head and Asra rests his head against my thigh while I come back down. When I open up my eyes, he's smiling softly up at me, eyes half-lidded, looking almost as satisfied as I feel. “Hello, my love.” He kisses the inside of one thigh and rubs his hand along the other. “It feels so good to do that again.” Standing again, he runs his hands gently over my body and kisses my forehead before stepping around behind the chair. 

Julian sighs contentedly, and I glance back over my shoulder. Asra has one hand buried in Julian's hair, pulling his head to the side and nibbling at his neck. I swing my legs around, turning until I’m straddling one thigh, and push aside the robe. It never got properly tied in the first place. Running the backs of my nails over his sides, I lean into him and start working a trail of love bites along his sternum. There’s a faint glow at his neck, and they disappear as fast as I can place them, but he shivers anyway caught between me and Asra, and his hands grip my thighs, pulling me tighter against him until I catch the skin over his collarbone between my teeth.

Julian is completely, entirely pliable in Asra's hands. I'd say ensorcelled if I didn't know for sure that Asra isn't using any actual magic on him. He tilts Julian's head from one side to the other, alternating which side of his neck he's working over with his lips at any given moment, or running his hands firmly over those broad shoulders. He pauses for a moment and catches my eye, smirking and winking at me, before kissing the side of Julian's mouth. 

I spread my hands out on Julian's chest, then dig my fingernails in, he tenses for a second, moans, and then - if possible - relaxes more than he was a moment before. I smooth my hands up to his shoulders, then down his arms, working my lips down his chest then stomach in time with them, pausing to rearrange myself so that I'm kneeling between his legs, arms wrapped around his thighs. Tease him with little licks and kisses on the inside of his thighs until there are fingers gently losing themselves in my hair. Acknowledgment, not instruction.

There's a soft touch on my shoulder, enough to keep Asra's voice behind me from being a shock. “Do you want to fuck you, Ilya?”

“Mmmhmmm.”

Asra laughs and kisses the back of my neck. “Words, darling.”

In the long moment it takes him to collect himself enough to speak, I nuzzle the ridge at the top of Julian's hipbone. Asra's hands grip my arms lightly. No question who's in control.

“God, yes - Asra.” The vowels in the name are extended, whiny and needy. Asra reaches beside me, patting Julian's leg, then leans close to my ear, whispering low. 

“And what would you think of letting Ilya fuck you at the same time, sweetheart.”

“I -” That sounds incredibly naughty and incredibly nice. I swallow hard. “Umm, yeah, if he . . .”

Asra laughs and kisses my neck, pausing to suck a possessive mark on it. “I think he will. What do you think, Ilya? I fuck you, you fuck Dema?”

“Sure, I, wait, um -” There's an incoherent choking noise, and Julian rights himself enough to look at both of us. “What did you say? I think you -” 

Asra wraps his hands back around my breasts, and I lean my head back against his shoulders. “If you want. _Only_ if you want.”

“I, uh -” He pushes a hand back through his hair. “Um, yeah, I mean, if -”

“I'm game.” I press my lips to his stomach, over the trail of hair leading down. Asra laughs and pats my shoulders, as Julian groans again and lets one hand drift back down to the side of my face. 

“I'll be back. Got to find a few things.” Another touch to my shoulder and Asra stands. “Don't get too carried away, my darlings.” There's a slight shift in his tone and an anticipatory tremor through Julian.

“I, um, oh -” Julian gasps again as I run the tip of my tongue along the underside of his cock. “You, uh, you don't have to -”

I draw back just a little and lay my head against his thigh, looking up at him. His eyes are dark, and his bottom lip is swollen from where he's been biting at it. “I want to if you do.”

“Umm, yes, I think, I mean, yes.”

“Mmmhmm, good.” I fold my hands around his cock, lick my lips, and slide them over the head, running my tongue around the tip. There’s an absolutely wanton moan from above me, and I feel Julian drop back into the chair again. Eyes closed, concentrating on feeling not sight, I keep my movements slow, careful to not, as Asra instructed, get too carried away. Julian knuckles brush against my cheek, light as a kiss. The touch would be a chaste touch in other circumstances. There are pleased mewls and moans from Julian, but he was already beginning to fall past words, and this isn't helping.

Asra's hands close around my shoulders again and pull me back, gently turning me around until he can kiss my mouth, tongue pushing past my lips, and running along my teeth. Julian whines in protest as Asra pulls me and then him to his feet, herding us both to the bed. He turns Julian by his hips, tugs the robe off him, and pushes him back onto the bed. Julian melts under his touch, dropping back like he isn’t taller and broader than Asra. 

“I want to watch you awhile, Ilya,” Asra’s voice is low. “You’re not allowed to touch yourself, or me, or Dema unless I say so. In fact -” He drags a hand down Julian's torso. “Hands behind your head. Good with that?”

I climb onto the bed, reclining on my side alongside Julian. I stroke his jaw and run my thumb along his lips. “Hey there, darling.” Dragging the back of my nails down his chest, I lean over him and kiss his mouth. “So I get to touch you however I want.” Placing a single finger of my free hand over his lips, I run a finger around the base of his cock and back up the underside, teasingly light. He moans against the hand I have over his mouth.

Asra breaks the wax seal of a tiny glass pot. I can't help but giggle - of course, the palace has thought of everything a guest might want or need. He dips two of his fingers in it and nudges Julian’s legs apart, hooking one ankle over his shoulder, and presses a kiss to the inside of his knee before slipping his hand in between his legs. I flatten my hand over Julian’s stomach and lay my head down next to him, nibbling at his ear and neck as he squirms and whimpers from Asra’s ministrations.

“You feel perfect, darling.” Asra keeps up a string of praises in a low tone. He takes his time, leaving me to work over Julian’s chest and face with my mouth and hands, occasionally slipping my fingers between my own legs where I’m still wet and sensitive from his earlier work. He finally leans down himself and kisses Julian’s sternum. “Here, sweetness, you ready?”

“Mmmmhmmm, uh, um, yeah.”

“Come on, sit up for me.” Asra unhooks Julian’s leg from over his shoulder and slides a hand under his back. I help from behind, steadying him from behind. He lets his head fall onto Asra’s shoulder, happy, incoherent syllables slipping from his lips. There’s a calculating look in Asra’s eyes, as if he’s double checking he concocted earlier, even as he rubs his hand over Julian’s back in small circles. “Here’s what I’m thinking, my loves. Ilya, turn around, kneel on the bed.” His tone is gentle, but it’s no less of a command. Julian’s eyes are dilated, lips heavier than usual, when he’s facing, long legs folded underneath him, and Asra’s arms still wrapped around him from the back. 

Asra glances at me and flicks his eyes to the side. I catch the message and climb into Julian’s lap, straddling his legs. I can see where Asra is going with this. Julian arcs over me closing his mouth around mine, possessive and needy again, now that he’s somewhat roused from the spell Asra had him under. His erect cock brushes against me and I purr into his mouth. “Ready?” His hands clasp at my waist, pushing down slightly, and I reach between my legs, making sure he’s lined up with my entrance before slowly lowering myself onto him. He groans as I rock back and forth, settling myself against him with a low moan, face tucked tight against his chest.

There’s the sound of rustling fabric, Asra dragging a pillow behind me, I think, if I can really think while Julian and I are making tiny, delicious movements against each other. One of Julian’s arms unwraps from behind me, and we tilt back slowly until I’m laying on the bed hips higher than my waist with Julian propped up above me on one elbow, his other hand lost in my hair. It’s a small, warm space, more comfortable than confining. 

Asra’s fingers close around my hands. “Feel okay like that, sweetheart?”

I wrap my legs around Julian’s waist and try an experimental roll of my hips against his, sighing at the movement. “I’m good. Very good. Exceedingly good. Wonderful.”

“Mmmm.” Asra kisses my knee in response. “Ilya?”

Julian whines again, “Asra, please, I need -” He moans and jerks inside me as Asra does something to him. 

“I know, handsome. I know.” More sounds of fabric rustling. Somehow in all of this, Asra never actually got fully undressed. Julian groans and arches against me, presumably as Asra pushes into him. I mouth at the skin of his chest, until I find one nipple, flicking my tongue and closing my teeth, nibbling at the peaked flesh. Asra rocking against him carries through his hips, teasingly small movements against me. Then a moment of stillness, giving Julian time to adjust to him and running his fingers over my knee just in case I thought he had forgotten me. Something is whispered between them. Julian gasps as Asra pulls out then thrusts back in, motions slow at first, then faster. Julian moves his own hips along with Asra, pulling me into their rhythm. I arch my back and tilt my hips directing more of the friction to where I want it, clutching at Julian's arms because I need this, I need to be tangled with both of them in what this is, what it might be, what it might have been.

Asra comes first, and not - despite the amount of teasing he's endured - Julian. There's a moment of stillness, broken only by Asra's ragged breathing, then the inevitably obscene noise of him pulling out. He slumps on the bed beside us, eyes half-closed, a grin on his lips. Julian rolls over onto his back, pulling me with him, and we both finish soon after, collapsing into a tangled knot of limbs and hard breathing. I roll off Julian, keeping an arm and a leg wrapped around him, and Asra curls against me, lips pressed to the back of my neck. 

I’ve half dozed off when Asra gets up, fingertips lingering for a moment before leaving. I tuck my face closer into Julian’s shoulder, and he mumbles something incoherent, shifting around until there’s a hand on my face that I feel no need to remove. Water runs in the bathroom, and Asra returns soon after, tugging at my arm and pressing a cup of water into my hand, and laying a dampened towel across my knees. Good idea. I take a sip. Julian’s eyes are still closed, a blissed-out half-smile on his lips. He barely stirs when Asra begins to dab at his chest and stomach with a second dampened towel. Definitely going to be out for a bit.

I take a longer drink of water. “Think I’m going to just rinse off.”

“Mmmhmm. Don’t take too long.” Asra takes the towel from my lap and tenderly runs a corner of it over Julian’s face.

Running cool water over myself in the tub gets rid of the worst of the post sex stickiness. I take a moment to sketch a contraceptive spell on myself, wrap myself up in an oversized, overly fluffy towel and clean my mouth and teeth, even if mostly I just want to dry off as quickly as I can and curl back up in bed with the two of them. When I reemerge, Asra has stripped the top blanket from the bed, retrieved another from somewhere, and most impressively, somehow gotten a still mostly asleep Julian moved around to where he is entirely in bed rather than half hanging off of it. Julian sighs sleepily as I snuggle back down beside him. Asra tucks the second blanket around the two of use, then crawls underneath himself, curling up on the other side of Julian. With a flick of his wrist, he extinguishes the lamps still burning in the room. One hand reaches across to linger on my hair. “Go to sleep, dear heart.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, you made it through. Good. Thanks for reading.
> 
> Non explicit summary: Dema and Asra return to the guestroom where Julian's sprawled in the bath with a bottle of wine, claiming that he's going to enjoy what might be a last night. There's more making up between Asra and Julian. Dema frets about what the references to her being gone mean and whether she's "real." Angsty angst. Then naughty bits.


	10. No More Dreaming of the Dead as if Death Itself Was Undone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Florence and the Machine, "Blinding."
> 
> Additional warning: canonical major character death.

_The room is dim and long - maybe more of a corridor. Lined with cots and pallets. There’s a pail in my hand, heavy with water, and I’m so, so tired. My head swims, my chest aches, and my joints are screaming, so hot - very, very hot, yet my fingers are freezing and I can’t feel my toes any longer. Why am I carrying water? There’s a hoarse cough from one of the bodies on the cot. Ah yes. Because I want someone to carry water for me when I’m so weak that I can’t rise._

_The corridor lurches. Forward and backward at the same time, and my stomach spins. There’s a fire roaring in front of me. I drop the bucket. Turn. Try to run. A rope - so rough, why do they have to be so rough? - catches about my neck, jerking me back. And I can’t do anything but claw at it, trying to scream, but I can’t, I can’t._

Julian’s hands are clutching mine, pulling my fingers away from my throat. “Darling, sweetheart, wake up! It’s just a nightmare, _solnishka_. C’mon, darling.”

My eyes snap open, and I collapse against his bare chest with a strangled noise. His hands stay tight around mine, and I feel something soft against the back of my neck. Asra’s hair. He murmurs some soothing nonsense about being safe and rubs my shoulders, while I cry against Julian. Asra’s warmth leaves my back when my breaths start to even out. Julian lays back down pulling me with him and pushing my hair back from my forehead. 

“Just a nightmare,” he says softly.

“Everything is a fucking nightmare,” I mutter into his chest. “Sleeping and waking.”

Silence. Then a hesitant answer. “I'm so sorry, love.” He uncurls his fingers from around mine, then rearranges them so that my hands are pressed between his and his chest. “I am, um, that is, I like holding you like this. Just wish . . .” 

The mattress sinks beside me as Julian's voice trails off. Asra's fingers trail along my spine. “Made some tea.”

“Is it going to put me back to sleep?” I don't bother lifting my head from Julian's chest. 

“I mean, that's what it's intended to do, but -”

“But there's a good chance I'm impervious to it anyway?” That would be a problem if I wanted to go back to sleep. I don't. Awake and curled around Julian is fine. “Thanks, Asra, I'm okay.”

A soft scrape as he sets something - a mug, I suppose - aside, then he lies down next to the two of us, reclining on his side, head propped up on his hand. “I understand.” His fingertips brush over my back again, then he lays his head in Julian's shoulder, forehead close to mine.

There's a touch of light creeping through the curtains, just enough to make Asra's hair appear to glow. It might be beautiful, under other circumstances. Now it's just foreboding. I close my eyes again and try to snuggle closer to Julian, even if I’m afraid that I’m already as close as I can be. 

_Warm skin. Lungs moving beneath ribs that I can feel too well, because he doesn’t eat enough, doesn’t sleep enough. And maybe if we just had time. Chest hair rough beneath my cheek. Breathe pushing through my hair. Warm, slightly moist. Defined muscles in his shoulders. Hands on my back. Julian’s large, glove-soft fingers. Asra’s smaller, rougher, worn fingertips. Prickly stubble on his jaw, his chin, turning to soft skin as my fingers move along my neck. Pulses from the blood in his arteries. Subtle rises and falls. Salt roughened voice singing, humming softly._

There’s a knock at the door. Too soon, even though when I raise my head the room is lighter than I expected. Mid-morning. I drop my head back against Julian’s chest with a moan. Asra murmurs that he’ll answer it and gets up, fabric swishing as he pulls his robe tighter around him. Nahara’s voice carries easily from the door. “I’m sorry. It’s time.”

Julian wraps a blanket around my shoulders, tight as if he’s transferring his own embrace to it, and gently slides me off his chest. “I understand. Just a few minutes, I’ll be ready.”

Asra comes back to the bed and climbs in behind me. He curls his arms around my shoulders, then sits up, pulling me with him, whispering soft susurrus in my ear in a language that sounds simultaneously familiar and different. 

Julian draws out dressing as long as he can, finally sitting down on the edge of the bed to pull on and button up his boots. He leans over and touches his forehead to Asra's, then presses a kiss to mine. “Just, um, just go back to sleep, you, um, both of you. I'll be back before you wake up.” His lips attempt to curl into a smile that fades just as quickly as it started.

“Julian -” 

He touches a finger to my lips, cutting off my protest. “You don't need to be, that is, you don't need to see what will happen.” Another pair of kisses, one for me and one for Asra, and he gets up and walks across the room, too quickly for his resolve to fade. Or perhaps too quickly for Asra or I to stop him. I just catch a glimpse of Nahara in the hallway and his declaration that he’s ready before the door slams shut behind him.

I fly out of bed, Asra grabbing uselessly for my hand behind me, and begin to fling on my own clothes. Or the various clothes in the room that aren’t really mine, but that Nadia has provided. Not that I’ll be in any semblance of order without her or Portia overseeing the process.

“Dema, what? What are you doing?”

I pull a blouse over my head and twist the excess fabric around before tucking it into the waistband of the first pants that came to hand. It was probably meant to be worn with a belt. One that I don’t have time to look for. “I’m not _not_ going - I can’t let him die alone, Asra. No one deserves that.”

Asra’s face blanches at the statement. “No.” His eyes drop, and he shakes his head slightly. “No one deserves that.”

“So I’m going.” I find one of my sandals on the floor, then kneel beside the bed, fishing underneath it for the second. “You don’t have to - if you don’t want to, but -”

His hand closes around my shoulder, then he lets go and lifts my chin up so that I’m looking at him. “Dema, I’m staying with you. Whatever happens.”

* * *

In the entrance hall, Nadia and Pontifex Vulgora are embroiled in a spectacular argument. Volta is standing off to one side, twisting her tiny hands together. Vlastomil, meanwhile, is pawing through the soil surrounding a potted plant and making distressed noises.

“Absolutely not, Pontifex! The matter has already been decided.” 

“But if you are going to deny the people the satisfaction of combat -”

“Countess! I simply must protest. Your plants! There are no worms in this soil. How can you expect them to thrive without worms.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake! Not now, Vlastomil.” Nadia pinches the bridge of her nose and gestures sharply to the guard. “Vulgora, I’ve heard what you call arguments, and I’m ignoring all of them. You may choose not to be there if you’re that unhappy.” Nasmira catches her sister’s elbow as she turns for the door. Nadia’s robes swirl around her as she turns back, and spots Asra and I frozen in place on the stairs. “Ah, Dema. Asra. I thought -”

“I’m coming with you.”

Nadia’s lips press into a thin line. “Are you sure?”

Asra takes my hand in his. “We are.”

“Very well. I don’t have any further interest in arguing. With anyone.” Her face softens, and she looks down. “I apologize. The harshness was not intended for the two of you. Nasmira, will you come with us?”

“Of course, Didi.” Nasmira releases her sister's elbow and extends a friendly hand to me, guiding Asra and me to the carriage waiting outside.

“What was Vulgora angry about this time?”

Nasmira exchanges a look with Nadia, who sighs heavily. “They were upset that I had Nahara escort Julian to the coliseum privately. Rather than making it another public part of this entire ordeal.”

Of course. Bloodthirst in the street. That would appeal to them.

“I am sorry that any of this must take place in public. Take place at all. Dear, are you sure that you want to be there?”

“Want isn't exactly the right word.”

“No, I suppose not.” She leans back and raps the carriage door firmly. I hear the driver yell something to the horses and we jerk forward. “Very well.”

* * *

At the coliseum, Nasmira settles us into Nadia's elevated box and tries to get us to drink some tea. After a single so, I find that my stomach is too tense even for plain tea, and Asra decided it with a single shake of his head. The kindly princess leaves us with a sigh and a pat on my shoulder. 

Beside me, Asra starts to tremble. His eyes have gone blank behind the tears beginning to form in them, but he's fighting them back, hands clutching at the excess fabric of his trousers. I set my hand on one of his. The tremors continue, not just nerves, but the beginnings of magic. Aimless, feverish magic. Enough to blow the whole coliseum, if not the whole city to pieces.

“Oh! Oh god . . .” My chair almost falls backward as I scramble out of it, and stand in front of Asra, grabbing his shoulders and pulling him against me. “Sweetheart, I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have. Listen to me, Asra, just breathe, I’m here.”

He tenses again, and my mind races, trying to think of how I could possibly counter what Asra could do if he loses control. Then, abruptly, the magic is gone, sucked back into wherever Asra pulled it. A sob heaves from his body and he falls forward against me. A breath of relief escapes my lungs, and I rub his back and shoulders, murmuring suggestions - no commands, just soft ones - to breathe.

I feel something, no nothing, a seething void behind me. A freezing breath brushes past my ear. As my arms tighten around Asra, I close my eyes and draw in a sharp breath, deep, like it might be my last one. There’s a click of sharp teeth behind me. It might be my last.

“Hanging is such a pedestrian way to die. But absolutely fascinating from the perspective of science.” 

Asra stiffens in my embrace. I pull him tighter against me and cover his ears with my hands. I can’t imagine Valdemar is about to say anything that either of us needs to hear. I want to whir around, call down a bolt of lightning to strike them on the spot. Not that it would do any good. I don’t think that something as incredibly natural as lightning can kill a monstrous aberration as Valdemar. But I can’t move. As if Valdemar’s cold breath has frozen me to the spot.

“The goal of the hangman - a _good_ one, so to speak - is, of course, to snap the neck in the initial drop. They do quite a few calculations in pursuit of that goal. The condemned weight, height, the length of the drop, the number of loops in the knot.”

Fingers - cold even through the black leather gloves that I know they’re wearing - brush over the back of my neck.

“The goal is to get just enough force. But not enough to decapitate. I had the good fortune to witness such an event once. Most fascinating. But, you see, in the field of science, there isn’t agreement that snapping the neck is the mechanism of death. At least not in all cases. And strangulation, which the cyanosis generally observed on the hanged, well, there are just so many variables.”

A shiver passes from Asra into me, deep into me, until I feel that my very bones are frozen. Crystalline. Close to the point of shattering.

“Is it respiratory obstruction? Occlusion of the larynx itself, or is the tongue forced into the throat blocking it off, hmm?” The cold fingers touch the front of my throat. “Or hypercapnia, constricting the blood vessels? But which? The ones at the side of the neck?” Their fingers trail to the side, just under my jaw. “Or the ones to the back?” Two points of frigidity press against the base of my skull, sending a shudder down my spine. “Or could it be cardiac inhibition caused by the stimulation of pericarotid nerves? Different colleagues of mine have come to different conclusions. Perhaps I’ll gather some valuable information out of today’s events.”

“Quaestor. Remove your hands from her.”

The cold hands pull away at the sharp, stern command from behind me. I release the breath I didn’t realize I was holding and slump forward against Asra, who only just manages to catch me. Valerius. Oh, thank god.

“I thought the witch might be interested in a few details of the day. Given how involved she’s been in this process.”

“Don’t you have - no, I don’t care. Just get out of my sight.”

“As you wish, Consul.”

Valerius’s warm, welcome hand replaces Valdemar’s on my shoulder. Septima appears a moment later, sitting down beside Asra and unexpectedly tugging him into her lap. I let go of him, and he falls into her skirts, twisting his fingers into the fabric. Val takes my elbow, pulling me a step away from them. 

“You shouldn't be here, little witch. You don't need to see this.”

It's the same thing Julian said to me earlier when he tried to convince Asra and me not to follow him. “How can I let him die alone?” The question Julian refused to hear.

A wry smile starts to play around his mouth, then he stops himself, letting his lips fall back into their usual pout. His hand moves over mine and presses down. “I . . . I understand. Perhaps more than I care to admit.”

“Thank you. For the rescue.”

Valerius looks around at the stadium seats that are slowly being filled. The crowd today might be greater even than yesterday. “I can assure you, witch, Valdemar's tenure will end as soon as I can devise a way to rid us of them.”

“Fire, perhaps?” I say the words without thinking, then shudder when my mind begins to associate the syllables with the meaning. 

Val's hand tightens around mine, but he says nothing. Ah yes, he has his own unwelcome memories of fire. Behind me, Asra is still sobbing into Septima's skirts and shaking underneath the old woman's hands.

“She's kinder than she lets on at first, isn't she?” Much like someone else I can think of, and someone for whom I am currently very grateful.

“A mother bear.”

“He can't watch this.”

“You shouldn't either.”

“I -” Part of me thinks that he's right. I shouldn't watch. I should turn back. Hold Asra. Go back to the palace and wait there. That’s horror enough. No, not enough. There isn’t enough horror to atone for my role in this. “Val - I have to.”

“Very well.” His hand tightens on my arm. “At least, don’t force yourself to do this alone.”

The guards start beating their spears against the ground. It ‘s the same signal they used yesterday to call the crowd to attention. The stadium quiets, they must be bringing Julian in. “Val, your shawl? Can I borrow it?”

“What?”

“I - Julian didn’t want me to come.”

He sighs and I know that he’s thinking that a shawl isn’t much in the way of a disguise, but he unwraps it and drapes it over my shoulders. I loop the shawl over my head, pulling the loose fabric forward in an attempt to obscure my face. “Thanks.”

Julian's hands are tied behind his back. His coat and jacket are missing, leaving him in the blousy white shirt that he still hasn't bothered to button up. As the guards lead him out, the crowd breaks into another ruckus, cheers and boos mixing together. Julian looks around him, gaze passing over the crowd, then up to boxes where I'm standing with Valerius. For a moment I think that the shawl wrapped around my head has worked. Then his eyes dart back to me, his face blanches, and he looks down at his feet.

The countess, resplendent in violet with a jeweled crown set on her head, walks slowly out to the edge of her box. Nahara flanks her, holding a deadly looking staff. In the shadows, Portia is being tended to by the remaining two princesses. Nadia's face is calm, but her hands clutch the railing as she clears her throat.

“Julian Devorak, you have been found guilty of the murder of Count Lucio and sentenced to be hanged until dead. Do you have any last words?”

Julian looks up at Nadia and then back to the crowd. He smiles. Of course, he smiles - the damned fool. When he speaks his voice rings clearly through the stadium. “Just remember, Vesuvia, I did it for you.”

The hangman fixes the noose around Julian's neck and a rough mask of stack cloth over his head. There's a slow movement in the stands. Some are turning their backs to the gallows in silent protest, refusing to treat the hanging as a spectacle. Not quite half of the crowd, mostly in organized groups, although there are a few brave souls turning their backs in isolation, even as they're surrounded by bloodlust.

Nadia looks to Nahara and the older sister nods solemnly. This will be trouble. But not the sort that I can bring myself to be troubled by. Part of me even cheers it on.

A pause, then the hangman pulls a lever and the gallows floor drops from beneath Julian's feet with a sickening thud.

Valerius's arm wraps suddenly around my shoulders, and he's turning me away from the view below. “Close your eyes, little witch. Don't burden yourself with this.” His hand closes over my eyes, but not before I catch a glimpse of Julian's body out of the corner of my eye, dangling from the noose, limbs convulsing. The stadium explodes - the cacophony washing over me in a roiling wave. My knees go weak for a moment, then Val's hand is under my arm, steadying me - at least a bit. Enough to get me further back - back to where Septima still holds Asra. Silent, stricken Asra who is much too still, curled in on himself like a child hiding in a corner from something terrible.

“Asra.” His eyes snap open when I say his name, and the look in them is horrible: here and not, and dead and alive, and child and adult, and fleeing and frozen, and present and past. With a strangled cry, he throws himself back into my arms, clinging to me. I hold him and stroke his hair. I don't feel like I'm really here either. The shouting behind me fades into static.

_It's just a nightmare, solnishka._

Just a nightmare. I screw my eyes shut. When I open them again, this will all be gone. None of it would have happened. Julian and Asra and I will be curled up in bed, sex dazed and curled around each other and falling back into sleep.

“Septima, would you see if Her Excellency can spare a guard or two.” The voice behind me sounds distant, then comes a bit more into focus as a hand closes on my shoulder. “I'll get you back to the palace, witch. Nadia is going to be occupied for a bit, I believe.”

“What?” I don't turn away from Asra who is now clutching me as though I'm the only thing keeping him from drowning in a stormy sea. He's never been as strong as he puts on, as strong as he wants to. Like glass. He can endure a lot, as long as the force is spread out, but a concentrated blow, and he shatters.

“There's about to be a riot. And I'd prefer not to be out in it. Or you to be out in it. You're one of a very small number of people I actually like.” Valerius pauses. “Can you get him together enough to get out of here?”

Nasmira and Navra are standing at opposite ends of Nadia's box, working some sort of magic. Shimmering bolts fly into the crowd. Where they hit the light scatters gently, and it seems that those touched calm somewhat. Nahara's voice echoes across the stadium, shouting orders to the guards who are hustling people out. I'm not sure that this will be any better taken to the streets.

Asra is still leaving heavily on me when we make it to Valerius's carriage. Val takes his elbow and shoves me in first, pushing Asra after me, then Septima, before climbing in himself. Asra's eyes are wide and confused, and I'm not entirely sure that knows where or even when he is. Septima mutters something that sounds like "poor things" under her breath, and as the carriage jerks forward I ease Asra down and lay his head in my lap. Across from me, Valerius touches a finger to his chin and gives Asra a considering look.

“This isn't something I would have expected from him.”

“No?”

“He was always so cold, so calculating before. Like we were all a game to him, and he was counting cards in his head.”

“I am here.” It's a faint protest, and I'm not quite convinced that it's entirely true. Still, I stroke his hair.

“Good. I was getting worried.”

Valerius sighs and sits back. He pushes the curtain aside, just a finger's width or so and peers out the window. “Shouting matches in the streets, but no bricks being thrown. Yet.”

“Maybe whatever spell the princesses were casting helped?” 

“Perhaps. Ah, a classic fight with broken bottles. I spoke too soon.”

I'm not sure how much time passes before we arrive back at the palace. I'm vaguely aware of shouting in the streets and the jolts as the carriage starts and stops its way through the streets. Vaguely aware of Val and Septima speaking quietly, of one of them pressing a handkerchief into my hand - crying? Am I? Mostly I feel like a blank space, a lacuna in this twisted text, something that begins and ends with my fingers in Asra's hair.

Somehow between the two of them, Valerius and Septima get us back to my guest room. Septima arranges Asra in the bed, like some sort of doll, one that is broken and in need of mending. She fusses over him for a minute, then excuses herself leaving me standing beside the door next to Valerius.

“I - I should take care of Asra.” 

“But who's going to take care of you, little witch?”

“I -” I don't know. _I don't know._ And...

Valerius reaches out and squeezes my shoulder. “I'll be in my office. Three doors past the library. Or send a servant for me.” He leans forward slightly, and for a moment, I think that hell is going to freeze over because Consul Valerius of Vesuvia, bitch extraordinaire, is going to hug me. But he stops short. “I know what it's like to see the one you love die.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Did I read academic forensic science articles in order to bring you extra creepy dialogue from Valdemar? Yes, yes, I did. You’re welcome.
> 
> Apologies if the SPAG is a bit off, feel free to note it in a comment, as I wouldn't mind going back and fixing, but I'm out of steam on this chapter.

**Author's Note:**

> Here we go again! Picking up from [_Whatever I've Done_](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18609253/chapters/44120548).
> 
> This part will have a higher percentage of backstory, including just what Asra and Julian were up to while Dema was "missing." On that note, hit me with your favorite Asrian tunes either here or on [Tumblr](https://aria-i-adagio.tumblr.com/). My spotify library needs some new stuff. The official playlist can be found [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6KYGCtanlUMyn2u1Ow4vTZ?si=_m8mLrMeSBy1Pw27sZUIlg).
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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